Ukraine’s president orders evacuation corridors for civilians
KYIV – Ukraine’s new president ordered the creation of evacuation “corridors” on Tuesday to help civilians escape fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in east Ukraine.
Petro Poroshenko, who is trying to win Russia’s backing for a peace plan for the east, ordered his security chiefs to create evacuation routes for civilians “to stop new casualties” in the conflict zones, his press service said.
The state security service (SBU) later said it was working with other law-enforcement bodies to establish “a safety corridor” in line with Poroshenko’s proposal.
“The Head of State also instructed the government to take responsibility for the transportation of people and medical services, as well as … provide the civilian population with drinking water, food and medicines,” the presidential press service said after Poroshenko met security and defence chiefs.The president, sworn in on Saturday, is under pressure to act swiftly and give teeth to his pledges to bring peace to the industrialised east where separatist unrest, which Kyiv says is fomented by Moscow, erupted in April.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meeting the Polish and German foreign ministers in St Petersburg, welcomed Poroshenko’s move as “a step in the right direction”.
He has frequently called for humanitarian aid for civilians trapped by fighting in east Ukraine.
Despite the start of talks with a Russian envoy and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and signs that Russia and Ukraine could soon end a long-running dispute over gas supplies to Kyiv, fighting has continued.
The pro-Russian separatists overnight attacked Ukrainian military checkpoints and other strategic points in eastern Ukraine but they were deflected with only minor casualties on the Ukrainian side, a government forces spokesman said.
In a three-hour battle near the airport of Kramatorsk, rebels attacked the army with mortars but government forces returned fire, destroying their position and killing 40 “mercenaries”, said the spokesman, Vladyslav Seleznyov.
This figure could not be independently confirmed and there was no immediate word from the side of the separatists.
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