A Ukrainian official says a second attempt to evacuate civilians from a southern city under siege for a week has failed due to continued Russian shelling.
Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said the planned evacuations along designated humanitarian corridors were halted because of an ongoing assault.
"There can be no 'green corridors' because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom," he said on Telegram.
Earlier Sunday the city council in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol, which is currently surrounded by Russian troops, said it will begin efforts to evacuate its civilian population after Saturday's attempts were scuppered by cease-fire violations.
Some of the 400,000 residents trapped by Russian forces were set to start evacuating at 12 p.m. local time (10 a.m. GMT) on Sunday under a temporary cease-fire that will last until 9 p.m. About 440,000 people resided in the port city on the Sea of Azov before the Russian invasion. Many residents still there are without electricity, water and heat after days of Russian bombardment.
"From 12 p.m. the evacuation of the civilian population begins," city officials said in a statement, which said a cease-fire was agreed on with Russian-led forces surrounding the city.
A similar plan had to be abandoned on Saturday after the cease-fire was not fully observed, with both sides trading blame. It was not clear how many civilians were able to escape during the brief window when the fighting paused. Buses had been arranged to transport people out of the besieged city.
The city's mayor, Vadim Boitchenko, said in an interview published on YouTube that "Mariupol no longer exists" and that thousands of people have been wounded.
"The situation is very difficult," he said. "I ask our American and European partners: help us, save Mariupol."
Mariupol is a strategic city located in the Donetsk region, parts of which are under the control of Moscow-backed separatists and Russian forces.
The capture of Mariupol would be a significant win for Moscow, as Russian troops could then begin to join up with their counterparts elsewhere in Donetsk and in the Crimean Peninsula.
On Sunday morning, both pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region and local Ukrainian officials said they would try again to get people out. The Red Cross was supporting the evacuation, they said.
According to the aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the humanitarian situation in Mariupol, a key target for the Russian invasion forces, is "catastrophic" with no power or water in civilian homes.
"It is imperative that this humanitarian corridor... is put in place very quickly," MSF's emergency coordinator in Ukraine, Laurent Ligozat, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Ukrainian authorities accuse the Russians of shelling even when civilians were gathering to form an escape convoy, but Moscow's Defense Ministry accuses the city's defenders of exploiting a "human shield."
Separately, on Sunday, the head of the Kyiv-controlled Luhansk regional administration said a train would be organized to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Lysychansk.
Lysychansk is near the front line between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists, who are fighting to link up with the Russian forces and control the entire southeast.
"You need to reach Lysychansk station on your own. Women with children are boarding first, then women under 40, women, the elderly," Sergiy Gaiday wrote on Telegram.
If Russian forces succeed in capturing Mariupol, which held out against rebel forces in the previous 2014 conflict, they will control Ukraine's entire Azov Sea coast.
This would give them a land bridge from Russia to Russian-annexed Crimea and an important supply route and port if they decide to push north in a bid to take all of eastern Ukraine.
