(Moscow) Russia said Thursday that a humanitarian corridor allowing the evacuation of civilians would be opened Friday in Mariupol, a large port city in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow forces have been trying to conquer for weeks. Meanwhile, Russian troops are leaving the Chernobyl plant they had occupied since the start of the invasion.
Posted at 4:37 p.m.
“The Russian armed forces will reopen a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhia (220 km to the northwest) on 1er April from 10 a.m. Moscow time,” or 7 a.m. GMT, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
This measure is taken following “a personal request from the French President (Emmanuel Macron) and the German Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) to Russian President Vladimir Putin”, added the ministry in a press release.
“To ensure the success of this humanitarian operation, it is proposed to carry it out with the direct participation of representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” he continued.
Earlier Thursday, the ICRC said it was ready to “lead” the evacuation operations of civilians from Mariupol from Friday, provided it had the necessary guarantees concerning the security situation.
The humanitarian situation is catastrophic in Mariupol, where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped and suffering from the lack of food and the cold.
The Ukrainian government said it dispatched 45 buses on Thursday to evacuate civilians from Mariupol to Zaporizhia, accusing Russian forces of preventing them from entering the city.
Both sides regularly accuse each other of frustrating civilian evacuation operations.
The Russians have left the Chernobyl plant
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Satellite image of the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl power plant.
Russian troops have left the Chernobyl plant they had occupied since the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Ukrainian authorities announced Thursday evening.
“There are no more foreign people (in service) inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, the site of the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history, said on Facebook the Ukrainian state agency for management of the plant area.
Shortly before, the agency had indicated the Russian troops had begun their departure from the plant, located about a hundred kilometers north of Kyiv.
Leaving the plant, the Russians engaged in “looting of premises, theft of equipment and other valuables”, accused the agency.
Ukrainian specialists will now inspect the plant in search of potential “explosive devices”, according to the same source.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had ceased, since March 9, to receive live data from Chernobyl. She worried Sunday about the lack of staff turnover at the plant since March 20.
A reactor at the Chernobyl power plant exploded in 1986 contaminating much of Europe, but especially Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Dubbed the exclusion zone, the territory within a radius of 30 kilometers around the plant is still heavily contaminated and it is forbidden to live there permanently.
Its last operational reactor was closed in 2000. The damaged reactor, covered with a tight steel cover and containing highly radioactive magma, is constantly monitored by specialists.
Two nuclear fuel storage centers are also located in the exclusion zone.