Russian MoD: Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine

Meeting of the Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine

In accordance with its commitments and exclusively for humanitarian purposes, the Russian Federation has opened ten humanitarian corridors from 10 a.m. Moscow time today to evacuate civilians and foreign citizens from Kiev, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol cities, including one humanitarian corridor from each city to the Russian Federation, as well as one through the territories controlled by the Kiev authorities to the west, to Poland, Moldova and Romania.

• Of the ten routes we proposed, the Ukrainian side agreed on only two – on Kiev and Mariupol directions. At the same time, once again not a single humanitarian corridor to the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Kiev authorities additionally announced four more routes from Izyum, Energodar, Volnovakha and in the Zhytomyr direction. For humane purposes, we agreed with them.
• Official Kiev, as before, continues to reject humanitarian corridors towards Russia, arguing that there are simply no civilians and foreign citizens who want to go to the territory of the Russian Federation.

We have already talked about this – it is a lie and a cynical deception. At the same time, the results of daily monitoring show the opposite – 23,127 more people have taken refuge in the Russian Federation from the horrors and arbitrariness staged by nationalists in the last 24 hours alone, and there are already 2,619,026 of them from almost 2,000 settlements of Ukraine.

And this is not just statistics, it is the fate of people, their hopes for the end of the daily nightmare, despair from the hopelessness of the situation. The Kiev authorities have legalized crimes against humanity, ignore numerous cases of looting, robbery, banditry, and sanctioned the use of weapons by nationalists against the civilian population, including women and children.

• Another provocation of nationalists was recorded in Kharkov, where, in order to conceal research on nuclear topics, militants of territorial defence battalions blew up one of the buildings of the Physics and Technology Institute on Akademicheskaya Street. Up to 50 employees of the institution can be under the rubble.

In addition, in the same city, in the basement of an art school on Yesenin Street, militants hide the bodies of civilians killed during a punitive operation against persons who did not support the criminal Kiev regime.

In Sumy, nationalists conduct raids on private households, during which, under threat of physical violence and murder, forcibly seize food, fuel, equipment, as well as personal cars from people.

• The Kiev authorities have banned the mayors of cities from any contacts with the Russian side, including on the organization of humanitarian corridors. All those who disagree are simply shot.
• Taking into account our responsibility for the humanitarian component and ensuring the safety of the exit of civilians and foreign citizens forcibly held by nationalists in the blocked settlements, from 10 a.m. by means of objective control, including unmanned aerial vehicles, intensive monitoring of the situation on humanitarian routes is being conducted.

The results of objective control again show that the ceasefire is actively used to intensively regroup units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and national battalions in defensive positions, as well as to move weapons and military equipment to more advantageous positions.

• To date, more than 7,000 from 21 foreign countries remain hostage to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, whom the nationalists continue to hold as a “human shield”.

The fate of these foreign citizens has been the subject of round-the-clock cooperation with representatives of the relevant diplomatic agencies.

• Please note that by the decision of the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, foreign students evacuated from the territory of Ukraine will be able to continue their studies at Russian universities according to quotas for foreign students. To this end, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia is already preparing notes to the embassies of the relevant foreign states.
• In addition, foreign partners express particular concern about the lack of the possibility of safe passage of ships from the ports of Ukraine due to the high mine danger created by the Kiev authorities in their internal waters and territorial sea, as well as possible provocations by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the shelling of ships from the shore.

Currently, there are more than 50 foreign vessels in Ukrainian ports, crewed by foreign citizens of Azerbaijan, Greece, Georgia, Egypt, India, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, the Philippines, Jamaica and a number of others.

Ukraine’s actions to create a mine danger violate the provisions of international humanitarian law in terms of mine installations that threaten the safety of civilian vessels of third States. The concern of the Russian side in this regard was stated on March 10 at an extraordinary session of the Council of the International Maritime Organization, which is a specialized agency of the United Nations.

• We call on the Ukrainian side to strictly comply with the norms of international humanitarian law and ensure the safe exit of foreign vessels from Ukrainian ports and the territorial sea.

We emphasize once again that the Russian Armed Forces do not pose a danger to navigation in the Azov, Black Seas, as well as other areas of the World Ocean.

• More than 9,500 temporary accommodation centres continue to operate in the regions of the Russian Federation.

A sufficient number of buses and supporting transport for the transportation of refugees are kept in constant readiness at checkpoints and temporary accommodation places. They are equipped with everything necessary for a temporary stay, hot meals are provided, mobile medical centres are deployed.

Federal executive authorities together with the subjects of Russia, various public organizations, patriotic movements have prepared more than 16,500 tons of humanitarian aid.

1,671 tons of humanitarian cargo have already been delivered to Ukraine, 212 humanitarian actions have been carried out, including 26 actions in Chernigov region, as well as in Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, during which 250 tons of basic necessities, medicines and food were transferred to the civilian population of the liberated areas.

Today, 23 humanitarian actions are being held in Kharkov, Zaporozhia, Kiev and Chernigov regions, during which 284 tons of basic necessities, including food, are being transferred to the population.

• Despite this, 34,555 people, including 3,562 children, were evacuated from the dangerous zones of various regions of Ukraine, as well as the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, during the day without the participation of the Ukrainian side, and more than 223,000 people have been evacuated since the beginning of the special military operation, 50,258 of them children. The state border of the Russian Federation was crossed by 23,253 vehicles, of which 1,249 per day.

In addition, today the Russian Armed Forces ensured the safety of the movement of a humanitarian convoy from Energodar city to Zaporozhye, consisting of 13 buses, 130 private cars with 957 refugees, and also managed to evacuate more than 62,000 refugees from Sumy in Poltava direction within a day.

• As for the statement of the President of Ukraine about the impossibility of evacuation from Volnovakha and Mariupol, we explain.

The variant of evacuation from Volnovakha proposed by the Ukrainian side, due to ignorance of the true situation on the “ground”, once again puts official Kiev in an absurd position, since this locality is currently completely controlled by the units of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who are already building a peaceful life in Volnovakha.

Appropriate humanitarian measures are being carried out with the population, and none of the residents are going to leave their homes.

• About the situation in Mariupol. The city is blocked, all bridges and approaches to the city are destroyed, the main roads are mined by nationalists, and armed men walk through the streets, open fire indiscriminately, thereby forcing the civilian population to stay in their homes.

Attempts of the sappers of Donetsk People’s Republic to demine the approaches to Mariupol have not been successful, as the nationalists are firing at them intensively from various types of weapons. Unfortunately, due to the fault of the Ukrainian side, the evacuation from Izyum to Lozovaya failed. This is the route and the humanitarian corridor that the Kiev authorities themselves offered us. Traffic routes are mined, sections of the road are fired from small arms and mortars by units of the territorial defence of Ukraine on the approaches to Lozovaya.