Russia’s Defense Ministry says 700,000 people have been evacuated from Donetsk, Luhansk and other parts of Ukraine.
He says that 134,000 people have been picked up from the port city of Mariupol. The Russian numbers have not been verified from other quarters.
On Saturday alone, close to 27,000 civilians were evacuated to Russia, says Colonel Mikhail Mizintsev in the Russian Ministry of Defense, writes NTB.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, he blamed Ukrainian authorities for only allowing civilians to evacuate to Ukrainian-controlled territory, not to Russia.
Ukraine: It happens by force
Ukrainian authorities, for their part, say that residents of the Russian-controlled area are being forcibly evacuated east and north.
According to the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, less than 5,000 people were evacuated to the west on Saturday via humanitarian corridors.
A total of 4,532 civilians were picked up from Mariupol and other cities and transported on to Zaporizhia. 578 civilians were retrieved from Luhansk.
Veresjsjuk write on Telegram that several buses that were to pick up people from Berdiansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar had to make a return trip because they were not allowed to pass Russian checkpoints. Only people with private cars were allowed to get out.
On Sunday, new attempts will be made to pick up people by bus.
Russian border town bomb
The governor of the Russian Kursk Oblast, Roman Starovoyt, says according to the newspaper Kyiv Independent that Ukrainian forces on Saturday attacked the Russian border town of Elizavetovka with bombers.
The border town is the seat of the Ukrainian city of Sumy.
This is not confirmed. There is also no information about those killed or injured.
Rescue crews are requesting a body bag from a collapsed house in Borodjanka.
Photo: Efrem Lukatsky / AP
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10 dead found in ruins in Borodjanka
Two dead were dug out of the ruins of a bombed-out apartment block in the Ukrainian small town of Borodjanka on Saturday, write BBC which cites the naudetatane in the Kyiv region.
Two days ago, 27 dead were found in the same city.
EU reopened in Kyiv
The EU reopened its embassy in the Ukrainian capital on Saturday, after moving to Poland on the occasion of the outbreak of war in February. The reopening was announced by EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell when he visited Kyiv.
Matti Maasikas, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, post on Saturday a picture of the EU flag which again flies in front of the embassy.
Italy also intends to reopen its embassy just before Easter, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
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