Agreement has been reached on the establishment of seven humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from Ukrainian towns and cities on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
She said civilians trying to leave besieged Mariupol would find transport at nearby Berdyansk, making clear Russia was not allowing a safe corridor to be created to or from the center of the southern port city.
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In the south, the encircled port city of Mariupol has seen the worst devastation of the war, enduring weeks of bombardment and, now, street-by-street fighting.
But Ukrainian forces have prevented its fall, thwarting an apparent bid by Moscow to fully secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In their last update, over a week ago, Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died, but the true toll is probably much higher. Airstrikes in the past week destroyed a theater and an art school where civilians were sheltering.
Zelenskyy said 100,000 civilians remain in the city, which had a population of 430,000 before the war.
Efforts to get desperately needed food and other supplies to those trapped have often failed.
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