After the talks held in the Bialowieza nature reserve in Belarus on Monday, Medinsky, who is also the aide to the President of the Russian Federation, explained that on Monday, Moscow created conditions to evacuate Ukrainians through the humanitarian corridors, but the transfer was interrupted by the Ukrainian military forces.

According to Medinsky, the Ukrainian Government does not control the military forces in the besieged cities and remote areas of the country. “I can find no other explanation for this,” he said.

He recalled that Moscow promised to respect the ceasefire “today, yesterday and the day before yesterday” for about five to seven hours a day and it has complied with that promise.

“Despite that, no one has left the cities,” because the military forces in those places “do not allow people to leave to use them as human shields,” he added.

The Russian chief negotiator noted that his country has decided to keep the humanitarian corridors open every day for several hours, during which the ceasefire will be respected.

However, on Tuesday, the Russian headquarters for humanitarian response in Ukraine reported that the country declared the ceasefire after 10:00 hours, local time, and will open the humanitarian corridors from different cities.

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