Six Humanitarian Corridors To Try And Evacuate Civilians: Ukraine

Ukraine will try to evacuate civilians through six "humanitarian corridors" on Wednesday, including from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said.

In a video statement, she said Ukrainian Armed forces had agreed to stop firing in those areas for 12 hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time (7 a.m. until 7 p.m. GMT) -- and urged Russian forces to fulfil their commitment to local ceasefires, the BBC reported.

The news comes as Ukraine managed to carry out its first mass evacuation exercise on Tuesday, carrying an estimated 5,000 civilians from the city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine to Poltava, in the centre.

Authorities in Kyiv have previously accused Moscow of shelling a refugee corridor intended for civilians trying to escape the city of Mariupol.

It is also unclear whether the six proposed routes will go -- previous offers of routes to Russia or its ally Belarus were rejected by the Ukrainian government.