Ukraine Crisis | Russian attacks halt plans to evacuate civilians

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — A second attempt to evacuate civilians from a besieged city in southern Ukraine collapsed Sunday amid renewed Russian shelling, while Russian President Vladimir Putin turned the blame for the war back on Ukraine and said Moscow's invasion could be halted “only if Kyiv ceases hostilities.”

Food, water, medicine and almost all other supplies were in desperately short supply in the port city of Mariupol, where Russian and Ukrainian forces had agreed to an 11-hour cease-fire that would allow civilians and the wounded to be evacuated.

But Russian attacks quickly closed the humanitarian corridor, Ukrainian officials said.

“There can be no 'green corridors' because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom,“ Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said on Telegram.

The news dashed hopes that more people could escape the fighting in Ukraine, where Russia's plan to quickly overrun the country has been stymied by fierce resistance. Russia has made significant advances in southern Ukraine and along the coast, but many of its efforts have become stalled, including an immense military convoy that has been almost motionless for days north of Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy rallied his people to remain defiant, especially those in cities occupied by Russians.

“You should take to the streets! You should fight!” he said Saturday on Ukrainian television. “It is necessary to go out and drive this evil out of our cities, from our land.”

Zelenskyy also asked the US and NATO countries to send more warplanes to Ukraine, though that idea is complicated by questions about which countries would provide the aircraft and how those countries would replace the planes.

The war, now in its 11th day, has caused 1.5 million people to flee the country.

The head of the UN refugee agency called the exodus “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.”

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