Moscow offered Ukraine nationals escape routes to Russia and its close ally Belarus on Monday, marking cries of rage from Ukraine, where officials said a bread factory had been hit hard by an airstrike in the recently Russian bombardment.
The dead bodies of at least 13 civilians were recovered from the rubble after a factory in the town of Makariv in the Kyiv region was hit, local emergency services said. Five people were rescued, of the 30 believed to have been there at the time.
The Russian offer preceded a planned third round of peace talks between Ukraine and the Russian delegation on Monday. Earlier rounds produced little but a pledge to allow humanitarian access that has not been successfully implemented.
Meanwhile, two days of failed ceasefires for the besieged southern port city of Mariupol have left hundreds of thousands trapped without food and water under relentless bombardment.
As Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for the talks, a Ukrainian negotiator has urged Russia to stop its attack on Ukraine, which the United Nations has claimed that over one million people had been forced to flee to Central Europe.
As per the reports, in the Russian offer, a corridor from Kyiv would lead to Russia’s ally Belarus, while civilians from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, would be directed to Russia.