Ukraine began evacuating residents from one besieged city Tuesday as the country sought to ease a growing humanitarian crisis fueled by a Russian assault that has stalled on the ground but brought increasing devastation from the air.
The two countries agreed to the new evacuation corridor and cease-fire for the northeastern city of Sumy after days of unsuccessful efforts to evacuate civilians from hard-hit areas amid continued Russian attacks and skepticism about Moscow’s intentions.
As his country entered its 13th day of war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sounded a defiant note in a speech from his office in the capital, Kyiv, saying that he was staying put and “not retreating.”
Moscow, facing fierce resistance and crippling sanctions, threatened to stop the flow of gas through pipelines from Russia to Europe.
Latest developments on Ukraine:
- Russia and Ukraine agree to humanitarian corridor in hard-hit northeastern city of Sumy.
- Strikes overnight in Sumy hit residential buildings, killing civilians, Ukrainian officials said.
- Two million people have now fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, the U.N. refugee agency said.
- Nearly all of Russia’s troops that had been amassed around Ukraine have been deployed, a senior U.S. defense official said.
Ukrainian officials pushed for the latest evacuation effort to succeed after several failed attempts to allow residents to flee Russian bombardment in other cities.
“Let’s try again,” Zelenskyy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak posted on Twitter early Tuesday.
From Mariupol in the southeast to Sumy further north, days of unceasing Russian strikes and encirclement have destroyed critical infrastructure and left cities without heat, electricity, water and food.
Video posted by the Ukrainian state communications agency showed people with bags boarding buses from Sumy, but it was not clear how long the effort would last or whether it would extend to other cities.
Moscow had offered on Monday to allow civilians to travel safely on designated routes from some areas that led to Russia or its close ally Belarus — an offer that Ukraine rejected.
The evacuation from Sumy began after the city faced an overnight barrage, with Russian strikes targeting residential buildings and killing more than a dozen people, according to interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko, including two children.
NBC News has not verified the numbers of people killed. Russia has consistently denied targeting civilians.
Russia’s invasion has brought death and destruction to areas across Ukraine but slow progress in its military ground offensive.
As cities across the country struggled, Zelenskyy on Monday sought to boost morale. Showing he was at work in Kyiv rather than in hiding, he promised to rebuild the country while condemning Russian forces for targeting civilian infrastructure like bread factories and churches.
“It is like a nightmare for them,” he said. “They forgot that we are not afraid of police vans, of tanks, of machine guns when the most important thing is on our side — truth.”
Ukraine’s military said it had stalled the Russian advance in an update early Tuesday, but the country’s defense minister warned that Russian forces were preparing for a new wave of attacks on key cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mykolayiv.
Russia has committed nearly all of the troops it had amassed around Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. defense official said.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no sign of pulling back in the face of fierce resistance, and its military might significantly overpowers Ukraine’s, a fact that Zelenskyy highlighted in an interview with ABC News that aired Monday night.
“The problem is that for one soldier of Ukraine, we have 10 Russian soldiers, and for one Ukrainian tank, we have 50 Russian tanks,” Zelenskyy said.
But he noted that the gap in strength was closing and that even if Russian forces “come into all our cities,” they will be met with an insurgency.
Zelenskyy, who has pressed the West to implement a no-fly zone above Ukraine and increase military supplies, is scheduled to address British lawmakers Tuesday, the first time a president of another country has addressed Parliament’s House of Commons.
Civilians fleeing the Russian assault have lined up at Ukraine’s borders to escape in what the United Nations has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Two million people have now fled to neighboring countries since the conflict began, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, tweeted Tuesday.
In the country’s south, the humanitarian crisis in Mariupol worsened, with civilians left without heat, water, food or electricity. Several attempts at evacuations from the city over the weekend ended when Ukrainian authorities accused Russian forces of continuing to shell the area.
Hundreds of civilians in the city are believed to have been killed since the invasion began Feb. 24, Human Rights Watch said, and acute water shortages pose a grave risk to 200,000 residents unable to flee.
The group said a Russian shell is believed to have struck the city’s last remaining cellphone tower Sunday, preventing emergency coordination. Continued attacks have halted repairs to damaged infrastructure, including groundwater pumps and water treatment facilities, and left people drinking rainwater and collecting snow.
As Russia’s isolation has grown since the war began nearly two weeks ago, the Kremlin has warned against the West’s involvement.
Moscow could stop the flow of gas through existing pipelines from Russia to Germany in response to Berlin’s decision last month to halt the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday..
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