“There was an agreement on humanitarian corridors. Is that implemented? What is being applied are Russian tanks, Grads and Russian mines,” Zelensky said in a video posted on the Telegram app.
He accused the Russian forces of “mining the road that was agreed to deliver food and medicine” to the besieged city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine and “destroying buses” designated to evacuate civilians from the fighting areas.
“They are opening a small corridor for dozens of people into the occupied territories. Not even towards Russia but towards propaganda tools, directly to the television cameras,” Zelensky continued.
However, the Ukrainian president indicated that Kyiv will continue to negotiate with Moscow until a peace agreement is reached.
And he added: “I will stay here, I will stay in Kyiv… I am not afraid.”
On Monday morning, Moscow announced local ceasefires and opened corridors to allow civilians to leave several besieged cities in Ukraine, where the humanitarian situation is getting worse by the day, and food is running out.
But Ukraine has refused to evacuate civilians to Russia, as four of the six corridors proposed by Moscow lead to Russia or its neighbor and ally Belarus.
After fresh negotiations on Monday, Russia announced a local ceasefire in several Ukrainian cities starting at 07:00 GMT Tuesday to allow for the evacuation of civilians.
Moscow said that the new evacuation routes will be notified to the Ukrainian authorities for approval before 00:00 GMT.