The Russian Ministry of Defense said it would stop bombarding Mariupol, but Ukrainian officials say the shelling continues, hampering the safe evacuation of civilians.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said earlier on Saturday it would stop bombarding Mariupol and another southeastern city, Volnovakha, which have endured days of heavy, indiscriminate shelling. Residents there have hunkered down in basements without power and with limited supplies of food and water, volunteers gathering information from the ground told CNN. But just a few hours after the announcement to pause fire, a top regional official accused Russia of breaking its agreement. „Due to the fact that the Russians are not observing the ceasefire regime and continue shelling Mariupol and its outskirts, the evacuation of the population has been postponed for security reasons,“ governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, announced on Twitter. CNN received a written account from a resident of a village near Volnovakha, whose husband has been trying to evacuate people from the city in recent days. „The situation in the city is very scary,“ Marina Gasanova wrote.
