Turkey offers to evacuate civilians trapped in besieged Mariupol by ship,’s defense minister announced on Saturday Hulusi Akar.
“We can provide support through boats for evacuations from Mariupol, “especially with regard to civilians, wounded and Turkish citizens and citizens of other nations,” Minister Hulusi Akar told reporters.
The port city, located along the Sea of ​​Azov on the southern coast of Ukraine, has been devastated by the barrage of Russian attacks and plans for humanitarian evacuation corridors have so far been thwarted.
The Turkish Defense Ministry forwarded its “request for support of the evacuations” to the Russian military envoy in Ankara and the Turkish military envoy in Moscow, who forwarded the message to the Russian authorities. The Ukrainian military spokesman in Ankara also passed the message to the Ukrainian authorities, according to Akar.
Mariupol remains strategically disputed on both sides, and the humanitarian situation there is catastrophic
According to the latest estimates, about 160,000 people are still trapped inside the city, the occupation of which would allow the Russians to secure a territorial continuity, from Crimea to the two breakaway pro-Russian republics of Donbass.
Turkey hosted the Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul earlier this week.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
