MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. Nationalists in Ukraine are obstructing the exit of civilians from encircled cities, using them as human shields, Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of the Russian National Defense Management Center, said at a briefing of the interdepartmental taskforce on humanitarian response on Wednesday.

"According to available information, nationalists are also barring civilians, including foreigners, from leaving, first of all, blockaded populated localities. We have this reliable information, primarily, concerning Kiev, Kharkov, Mariupol along with a number of other inhabited localities," he said.

According to the general, Ukrainian nationalists are hiding behind the civilian residents using them as human shields, provoking to use arms against innocent people.

"We have never done so and will not do," he stressed.

Mizintsev urged Ukraine and international organizations to provide humanitarian corridors as soon as possible, so that anyone can pass through them to safe locations.

"In view of the above, we now urge all international organizations, all without exception, as well as the Ukrainian leadership, to immediately ensure the emergence of humanitarian corridors for exits to safe places by all those citizens who will say so, all without exception," Mizintsev said.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported later that Russian troops were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. It emphasized that Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed by precision weapons.