War against Ukraine: Russia announces ceasefire for Mariupol

The Russian army has declared a cease-fire in the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha. According to Ukrainian figures, up to 200,000 people could leave Mariupol alone. But the ceasefire is apparently fragile.

The Russian Defense Ministry has ordered a ceasefire in Mariupol and Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine to allow civilians to be evacuated from the cities besieged by Russian forces. Russian forces should stop firing in the morning, reports the Russian agency Interfax, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense. The humanitarian corridors are open to civilians until the afternoon. “The humanitarian corridors and routes out have been agreed with the Ukrainian side,” the ministry said in Moscow.

According to the Reuters news agency, the ceasefire will apply between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Central European Time. During this time, civilians should be able to leave the two cities. According to estimates by Ukraine, around 200,000 residents of Mariupol could use the opportunity to get to safety via the humanitarian corridor.

However, there are already initial reports from the Reuters news agency that the Mariupol city council is accusing the Russian armed forces of not fully complying with the ceasefire. Talks are underway with the Russian side to ensure that guns remain silent along the entire evacuation route.

Corridor should lead to Zaporizhia

The route of the corridor is precisely defined, the residents must strictly follow it, according to the city council in Mariupol. People would be driven out of the city on public buses. If they had their own car, they could use that too. In this case, the city called on everyone not to leave any seat in the car empty and to take as many civilians as possible, reported ARD correspondent Palina Milling.

According to available information, the corridor should be a little more than 220 kilometers long. It leads out of Mariupol in a southwesterly direction to Zaporizhia. Attacks have also been reported from there, but the situation so far seems less dramatic than in Mariupol. Anyone who wants to flee to Poland from there would have to cover a little more than 1,000 kilometers.

Both cities under fire for days

Both the port city of Mariupol and the small town of Volnowacha have been under military pressure from the advancing Russian army for days. Mariupol has been reporting artillery shelling for days. Power lines have been destroyed and the water supply has been interrupted. The city said it intends to use the ceasefire for repair work. Aid supplies should also reach Mariupol.

Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine has also been under massive fire for more than a week. The residents report that they endured in cold basements without water, food, electricity and heating. Eyewitnesses report that several streets had burned down and that the bodies of dead soldiers were simply lying on the street. Aid organizations have not yet been able to penetrate the city. About 15,000 people are expected to leave Wolnowacha today via the so-called green corridor, it was reported Palina Milling further.

Port of Mariupol under “blockade”

The mayor of Mariupol, Wadym Boitschenko, had expressed the hope on Saturday night that a humanitarian corridor would soon be set up from the city with 440,000 inhabitants and that a ceasefire would be declared for it. This was intended to bring food and medicine into the city and repair important infrastructure.

The mayor had spoken of a “blockade” of the port. For five days, Boitschenko continued, the city had been suffering from “relentless attacks” from the Russian side. While humanitarian problems are being solved and every way is being sought “to get Mariupol out of the blockade,” the security forces are standing on the outskirts of the city as a “reliable shield,” said Boichenko. They would not have let the “invaders” into the city even on the ninth day of the war.

Encirclement of Kyiv and Kharkiv

According to the Ukrainian army, Russian troops have continued their offensive with air support and the use of high-precision weapons. The Russian side is trying to encircle the capital Kyiv and the metropolis Kharkiv, according to a report published by the Ukrainian army on Saturday night. In the east, she wants to create a land corridor from the separatist areas of Luhansk and Donetsk to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia.

Russian troops also continued to try to reach the administrative borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in order to create a land corridor from Russia’s annexed Crimea to the separatist areas.

The Ukrainian armed forces continue to emphasize that attacks will be repelled and opponents will be defeated. The account cannot be independently verified, nor can Russian information. The Russian agency Tass reported that the Ukrainian army had shelled two settlements in the self-declared People’s Republic of Luhansk three times within 24 hours. Details on possible victims or damage are not yet available.

reporting stopped

Reliable information about the war is likely to become even more sparse. Because in response to a new media law in Russia, several international broadcasters and agencies are now partially or completely ceasing their work in Russia, including CNN, the BBC, the Canadian broadcaster CBC and Bloomberg. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed several laws on Friday evening, according to which “false information” about the Russian armed forces could be imprisoned.

Third round of ceasefire negotiations

A good week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both sides are planning another round of negotiations over the weekend. The announced third round of negotiations on a ceasefire will probably take place in Belarus again. An exact date was not initially mentioned.