Your Evening Briefing: Ukraine Officials Decry Climbing Civilian Death Toll
Get caught up.
A car riddled with bullets in Irpin, north of Kyiv, on March 10. Ukrainians have been trying to evacuate the city as the Kremlin attack continues. Some have reportedly claimed that Russian soldiers are targeting civilians.
Photographer: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesAs Russia’s forces continue to pound Ukraine, more than 40,000 civilians were able to leave combat zones Thursday, bringing the total number of those evacuated since humanitarian corridors were opened to about 100,000, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Most of Thursday’s evacuations came from Sumy, Trostyanets and Krasnopillya, cities to the northwest of Kharkiv. But the Black Sea port of Mariupol continues to be a major catastrophe, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. “There is a real humanitarian disaster there.”
Cease-fire talks have made no progress. The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said Kremlin forces were trying to encircle Kyiv, moving from the north and west, but that their advance has slowed or even stopped. Ukrainian forces claimed to have pushed Russians out of the village of Baklanova Muraviika near Chernihiv, which sits on a road to the capital.