Russia vs Ukraine: Why the two sides are warring over humanitarian corridors

As the conflict enters Day 13, Ukraine claims that it has been unable to safely evacuate its citizens from cities that are under the Russian siege. There has been constant bombardment with reports of Russian troops targeting civilians trying to escape.

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The Kremlin on Monday announced new humanitarian corridors — a temporary pause of the armed conflict—to transport Ukrainians trapped in cities and towns under attack. However, Kyiv was not happy, calling the move “immoral”. Why so?

Russia and Ukraine agreed on organising humanitarian corridors after the second round of talks held in the Brest region of Belarus on 3 March. After the meeting, Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine's presidential adviser tweeted that though Ukraine’s demands were not met, the two sides have agreed on the evacuation of civilians.

However, with no temporary ceasefire, Ukraine says it is near-impossible to evacuate its citizens to safety.

What are Russia’s “new” corridors?

Russia has said that new corridors would be opened from the capital Kyiv and the eastern cities of Kharkiv and Sumy, as well as Mariupol.

The corridor from Kyiv would lead to Belarus, while civilians from Kharkiv would be permitted to go only to Russia. It would also mount an airlift to take Ukrainians from Kyiv to Russia, according to the Russian defence ministry.

“Attempts by the Ukrainian side to deceive Russia and the whole civilised world... are useless this time,” the ministry said.

Belarus is a close ally of the Kremlin and Ukraine does not feel safe to sends its citizens to Russia. It comes as no surprise then that the leadership in Kyiv is unhappy.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s spokesperson called the talk on new corridors “completely immoral”. “They are citizens of Ukraine, they should have the right to evacuate to the territory of Ukraine,” the spokesperson told news agency Reuters. “This is one of the problems that is causing the humanitarian corridors to break down. They seem to agree to them, but they want to supply humanitarian aid for a picture on TV, and want the corridors to lead in their direction.”

Has Russia kept its promise?

However, Russia has reportedly failed to keep up to its promise. The Kremlin said that it was ready to provide humanitarian corridors in Ukraine at 10:00 Moscow time on Monday.

However, on Tuesday, Ukraine said that the evacuation attempts have once again failed, as shelling by Russian troops continues.

Late on Monday, there were aerial attacks in Sumy and its surrounding suburbs that claimed the lives of several children, according to Ukraine. Dmytro Zhyvytsky, who leads the Sumy Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted on Facebook that after 23:00 local time Russian warplanes carried out strikes on the northeastern city. “Unfortunately, children are among those killed,” he said, adding that 10 people died, reports BBC.

Around 800 Indian students continue to be stranded in Sumy. On Tuesday, India’s UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti told the UN Security Council that India has “reiterated our urgent demand for safe and uninterrupted passage for all innocent civilians, including Indian nationals remaining in Ukraine”. “We are deeply concerned that despite our repeated urgings to both sides, the safe corridor of our students in Sumy did not materialise.”

Failed evacuations

Several evacuation attempts have now failed in Ukraine over the past three days.

There was no ceasefire as agreed upon, despite an announcement on Saturday that civilians would be allowed to leave. Ukrainians were unable to leave the besieged port city of Mariupol, where at least 200,000 people are trapped. They have no running water, food, power, and sanitation.

Mariupol arranged 50 buses at its city centre to rescue stranded citizens. But after two hours, the Russian army began shelling residential areas again, forcing those who had begun to evacuate indoors and underground, reported BBC.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also said that planned evacuation in Mariupol had failed on Sunday. A report says that an evacuation route offered to those leaving Mariupol was full of mines. “Today, our team began opening up the evacuation route from Mariupol before hostilities resumed. We remain in Mariupol and are ready to help facilitate further attempts — if the parties reach an agreement, which is for them alone to implement and respect,” the ICRC said on Twitter.

In Irpin, a suburb in Kyiv, the Russian troops hit an evacuation route, killing a family with two children and other civilians. Two artillery shells hit a checkpoint in Irpin as people were trying to escape. “A family died… in front of my eyes, two small children and two adults died,” said Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn, adding that eight civilians lost their lives across the district, as assault intensified.

Ukraine officials say that Russia continues to attack Kharkiv and other important cities with escape routes.

Civilian deaths mount

With stalled evacuation attempts, the civilian death toll in the conflict-hit region is mounting. More than 406 civilians have been killed and 801 have been injured since the Russian invasion on 24 February, said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The actual figures are expected to be higher, as the strikes continue in civilian areas.

Ukrainian president Zelenskyy said that instead of an agreement on humanitarian corridors, what Ukraine got on Monday was “Russian tanks, Russian Grad rockets, Russian mines”.

With inputs from agencies

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