More than 2 million refugees from Ukraine have fled to neighboring countries in response to the Russian invasion, according to United Nations officials.
The latest tally comes well into the second week of the Russian invasion and follows previous efforts to evacuate Ukrainian civilians from the southern port city of Mariupol who were struggling amid the Russian attack.
Video posted Tuesday by Ukrainian officials showed buses with people moving along a snowy road from the eastern city of Sumy and yellow buses with a red cross on them in the southern port of Mariupol.
“The Ukrainian city of Sumy was given a green corridor, the first stage of evacuation began,” the Ukrainian state communications agency tweeted.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians reportedly have been left with little food, and in many cases lack heat, water and electricity.
People continued to try to flee embattled Ukrainian cities along these safe corridors.
Safa Msehli, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, tweeted that 2 million have now left, including at least 100,000 people who are not Ukrainian.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations had agreed last week to a tentative cessation of fighting along “green” humanitarian corridors to facilitate civilian evacuations.
But the Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said Sunday Russia was not honoring the agreement. Those discussions have continued.
Russian forces have not been able to control Kyiv, but have made advances in southern Ukraine.
Russia’s army is much bigger and has superior firepower. Nonetheless, Ukraine has inflicted heavy losses against the Russian forces.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine also resurfaced late Monday night, according to The New York Times, releasing a brief video on his Facebook page from his office in Kyiv, saying he was not hiding.
“We used to say: Monday is a hard day,” he said. “There is a war in the country so every day is Monday, and now we are used to the fact that every day and every night are like that.”
• This story is based in part on wire reports
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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