Russia invades Ukraine, photos confirm Mariupol explosions

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshuk announced that Ukraine and Russia had agreed on three evacuation corridors on Wednesday.

One corridor for the evacuation of Mariupol residents and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Berdyansk, one for the delivery and evacuation of humanitarian aid to and evacuation from Melitopol, and one for rows of people in personal vehicles from Enrodar to Zaporizhzhya, Vereshuk said.

“Convoys of buses and trucks loaded with humanitarian aid have already left Zaporizhia,” she said in a video message on Wednesday.

Vereshuk told the Russian delegation to Tuesday talks Between Russian and Ukrainian teams in Istanbul, it received proposals from the Ukrainian side to organize evacuation corridors to some of the areas most affected by the fighting, including Kharkiv, Kiev, Kherson, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, Luhansk and Mykolaiv provinces.

Some basic information: Vereshok’s announcement comes two days after the mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol said evacuation lanes had largely come in. under control From the Russian forces, after weeks of bombardment, the city was left in pieces, an unknown number of civilians were killed, and hundreds of thousands of residents were forced from their homes.

“Not everything is in our power,” Mayor Vadim Boychenko said in a live television interview. “Unfortunately we are in the hands of the occupiers today.”

Boychenko called for a complete evacuation of the remaining residents of Mariupol, which had a population of more than 400,000 people before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Ukrainian officials claimed that Russian forces prevented evacuation convoys from safely approaching or leaving the southern port city.

CNN’s Nathan Hodge and Julia Presnyakova contributed to this post.