Ukraine War
Ukraine Planned to Evacuate Civilians From The Mariupol Steel Plant
(CTN News) – The Ukrainian president’s office said that an operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol will be held on Friday.
Further details were not provided in the statement.
Ukraine hopes to evacuate civilians holed up with fighters in Mariupol Steel works
In the sprawling complex on the outskirts of Mariupol, which was heavily bombed by Russian aircraft on Wednesday night and has been shelled relentlessly for weeks, hundreds of civilians are thought to be trapped.
United Nations gets involved On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for humanitarian corridors to be opened in Mariupol.
In a statement, Guterres said that he had held “intense discussions” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make evacuation from Mariupol a reality and that the UN and United Nations Red Cross was agreed “in principle” to be involved in the evacuation of civilians from the steel plant.
“Today, the people of Mariupol are in desperate need of an approach like this. “Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis,” Guterres said in Kyiv, speaking at a press conference with Zelensky.
Zelensky and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with the UN chief on Thursday after a visit to Moscow on Tuesday, where he met with Putin.