: Ukraine Official Says Assault Halts Evacuations for Second Time #WorldNEWS LVIV, Ukraine — Plans to evacuate civilians from a besieged port city in Ukraine collapsed Sunday for the second time

Ukraine Official Says Assault Halts Evacuations for Second Time #WorldNEWS
LVIV, Ukraine — Plans to evacuate civilians from a besieged port city in Ukraine collapsed Sunday for the second time along with an expected Russian cease-fire, Ukrainian officials said as they tried to persuade Russia to agree on terms for safely getting residents out of areas under fire near Ukraines capital.
Residents expected to leave the port city of Mariupol during a 10 a. m. to 9 p. m. local ceasefire, Ukrainian military authorities said earlier in the day. Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said the planned evacuations were halted because of an ongoing assault by Russian troops.
“There can be no ‘green corridors’ because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom,“ Gerashchenko said on Telegram.
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The news dashed hopes of progress in easing, much less ending, the war in Ukraine, which is now in its 11 day and has caused 1. 5 million people to flee the country. The head of the U. N. refugee agency on Sunday called the exodus “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
The presidents of Turkey and France, as well as Pope Francis, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate to end the conflict.
Separately, Ukraine’s national security service said Russian forces fired rockets at a physics institute in the city of Kharkiv that contains nuclear material and a reactor. Russian troops already took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine, as well as Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
The security service said a strike on the nuclear facility in Kharkiv could lead to “large-scale ecological disaster. ” The service said on Facebook Sunday that the Russians were firing from Grad launchers. Those missiles do not have precise targeting, raising concern that one would go astray.
Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy reiterated a request for foreign protectors to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO so far has ruled out because of concerns such an action would draw the West into the war.
“The world is strong enough to close our skies,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on Sunday.
Putin warned Saturday that Moscow would consider a third-party declaration to close Ukrainian airspace to be a hostile act.
The disappointment for women, children and older adults who waited to leave Mariupol and the nearby city of Volnovakha while able Ukrainian men stayed behind to fight came after a similar cease-fire deal collapsed Saturday and foreign leaders sought to bring diplomacy to bear on ending the war.
Putin told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be halted only “only if Kyiv ceases hostilities and fulfills the well-known demands of Russia,” according to the Kremlin’s readout of the phone call the two leaders held on Sunday.

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