Ukrainian authorities have put plans to evacuate civilians from the Mariupol region on hold, citing Russian violations of an agreed pause in hostilities.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region, tweeted at 12:45 p.m. local time (5:45 a.m. ET) on his Twitter account “EVACUATION OF PEACEFUL POPULATION FROM MARIUPOL POSTPONED!”
A short time earlier, Iryna Vereshchuk, the Ukrainian Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, said that Russian forces appeared to be making use of the halt in fighting that was agreed in order to allow the evacuation of civilians to move their own troops forward.
“Our military report that in the area of the declared route [of the evacuation corridor] Russian troops are using the ceasefire and moving forward,” Vereshchuk said.










