Agency Report

Ukraine said Thursday it was reopening humanitarian corridors allowing for the evacuation of civilians from war-scarred regions after a day-long pause that Kyiv attributed to Russian violations.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on social media that nine routes in the east and south of the country would be operating a day after they were shut because routes, she had said, were “too dangerous”.

“Humanitarian corridors in the Lugansk region will be run under the condition of cessation of shelling by the occupying forces,” Vereshchuk said Thursday.

Ukrainian authorities have been urging people in the southeastern Donbas area to quickly move west in advance of a feared, large-scale Russian offensive to capture its composite regions, Donetsk and Lugansk.

In the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk, Russian forces allegedly struck a train station used for evacuations recently, leaving more than 50 people dead.

AFP