The evacuation of civilians promised Monday by Moscow has proven to be a trap, two-thirds of corridors leading to Russia or Belarus. A cynicism that Moscow has already shown in the past in Syria or Chechnya to demoralize the populations.
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On the twelfth day of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has handled on Monday, March 7, a weapon with formidable psychological effects for the Ukrainian population: the announcement of the local ceasefire and the opening of “Humanitarian corridors” supposed to facilitate the evacuation of civilians. Made in the morning, the proposal should have concerned several cities, including the capital, Kiev, now encircled by the Russian army, and Kharkiv, in the East, bombed for several days.
In reality, two-thirds of these corridors were to join Russia or its Belarusian ally. As a result, the Ukrainian authorities refused the evacuation of their nationals through these corridors, placed under Russian control. “It’s not an acceptable option,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Verechtchouk. “There has been an agreement on the humanitarian corridors. Did it work? Russian tanks have worked instead, Russian rocket launchers, the Russian mines,” confirmed the Ukrainian president at the end of the day, Volodymyr Zelensky.
In passing, these alleged “humanitarian corridors” sparked a black anger of the Elysee. By detailing his device, the Russian army explained to respond to Emmanuel Macron’s “personal demand” during a phone call, the day before, with Vladimir Putin. The French Presidency immediately denied. “All this is not serious, it is moral and political cynism, which is unbearable to me”, denounced a little later the head of state on LCI: “I do not know a lot of Ukrainians who Want to get to take refuge in Russia, it is hypocrisy, it is an artifact of communication that I recover. “
” purely demonic “
While the offensive triggered by Vladimir Putin redouble intensity, Russia has again recourse to this kind of subterfuge, experienced in Chechnya, during the headquarters of Grozny, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, in Donbass, in 2014.
This time, the creation of these “humanitarian corridors” has been approved between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, during an appointment, Thursday, March 3, but has remained dead letter since. Two evacuation attempts failed in Maroupol, the besieged port city for days, in the south-east of the country, on the sea of Azov. An evacuation road was “mined”, Monday said the director of the operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Dominik Stillhart, stressing the difficulty of “bringing the two parties to an agreement that is concrete, exploitable and accurate “.
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