Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that Russian authorities have proposed a cease-fire for Tuesday, CBS News’ Pamela Falk reported. The proposed cease-fire, which will begin at 10 a.m. Moscow time, will allow for the opening of humanitarian corridors to evacuate citizens from Kyiv, Chernigov, Sumy and Mariupol, Russia said, according to The Associated Press.
Nebenzia took the floor at the end of a U.N. Security Council meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine on Monday to make the announcement.
“This proposal doesn’t have any demands about the citizens being sent necessarily to Russia, into Russian territory,” he said.
“There’s also evacuation offered towards Ukrainian cities to the west of Kyiv, and ultimately it will be the choice of the people themselves where they want to be evacuated to,” Nebenzia said.
But in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of violating previous humanitarian corridor agreements, saying fleeing Ukrainians faced “Russian tanks, Russian Grad rockets, Russian mines.”
“They even mined the roads that were the agreed routes for taking food and medicine to the people, to the children, of Mariupol,” Zelensky said in what has become a daily video address close to midnight.
During talks on Monday before Nebenzia’s address, the Russians proposed evacuation routes leading to Russia and its ally Belarus, rather than to areas of western Ukraine that remain peaceful.
“It’s just cynicism,” Zelenskyy said. By opening a small corridor to Russia, he said, Moscow is looking only for a propaganda victory.
-CBS/The Associated Press
