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- A Ukrainian minister said Russian forces had intercepted convoys of humanitarian aid.
- Iryna Vereshchuk said 14 tons of aid were confiscated by the Russians, per CNN.
- The aid was being transported on 12 buses bound for Melitopol in southern Ukraine, said Vereshchuk.
Fourteen tons of humanitarian aid bound for Melitopol, a city in southern Ukraine, have been intercepted by Russian forces, said a Ukrainian official on Thursday.
Iryna Vereshchuk, the Ukrainian minister of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, said that buses carrying humanitarian aid to Melitopol had been stopped and the aid confiscated, per CNN,
According to Vereshchuk, the aid was loaded on 12 buses filled with food and medication.
“We are negotiating for the buses to be returned and for the Melitopol residents tomorrow to evacuate using these buses,” she said.
Vereshchuk added that 45 buses bound for the port city of Berdiansk, a stop on the way to the besieged city of Mariupol, were also blocked by the Russians.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters that the buses were meant to deliver humanitarian supplies and bring out civilians from Mariupol, subject to the terms of a safe corridor agreed upon by Russia.
“For logistics and security reasons, we’ll be ready to lead the safe passage operation tomorrow, Friday, provided all the parties agree to the exact terms, including the route, the start time, and the duration,” ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson told Reuters.
“It’s desperately important that this operation takes place. The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it,” he said.
Russian forces previously agreed to re-open the evacuation corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, in line with requests from French and German leaders to let the 100,000 civilians trapped in the city evacuate.
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