MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The number of people, who applied to Russia seeking evacuation from Ukraine, increased by almost 20,000 in the past day, exceeding 2.6 million, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, said on Saturday.

"A total of 19,963 requests of this kind were registered in the past day alone. Overall, there are 2,638,989 of them <…>, coming from almost 2,000 cities, towns and villages of Ukraine," he said.

"Still, Kiev continues to make cynical claims that no one - be they Ukrainian civilians or foreign citizens - is willing to evacuate to Russia," he said. "But the number of evacuation requests submitted by Ukrainian citizens and foreigners via various channels is growing day by day, and this fact points to the contrary.".