A senior Ukrainian official has said that no evacuations of civilians will take place in war-torn Ukraine on Friday as the situation on the roads is too dangerous.
“Because of the insecurity along the routes, there will be no humanitarian corridors today, April 22,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
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“To all those who are waiting for an evacuation, please be patient and hold on,” she said.
On Thursday, some 79 people, mostly women, were evacuated on three buses from the shattered port city of Mariupol.
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The 225-kilometre (140 mile) journey to Zaporizhzhia — which used to take three hours in peacetime — took more than 24 hours.
Moscow and Kyiv regularly accuse each other of torpedoing evacuation plans.
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Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky had called for more weapons, saying Ukraine still does not have enough, despite billions in Western military aid that has forced Russia to refocus its offensive away from Kyiv and towards the east.
The IMF has warned of economic devastation both in Ukraine and abroad from the war.
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The conflict will cause the country’s economy to collapse 35 percent this year, the IMF said this week, while Russia’s will drop 8.5 percent.
The aid by America follows another $500 million package of support Washington offered to Ukraine last month, and comes as Western nations along with the IMF and World Bank step up aid to Kyiv as fighting rages in the country’s east and south.