MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, has said nationalists shot and killed civilians in Chernigov for asking to leave the city for safer areas.

"In the same city (Chernigov-TASS) a group of locals, driven by a serious humanitarian situation (of the remaining 120,000 people, more than half are sick and have no medical attention as hospitals are filled with militants from the Ukrainian armed forces and territorial defense), appealed to the administration with a request to leave for safer areas," he said. "As a result, the activists were detained by the Security Service of Ukraine and some people were subsequently shot and killed."

Mizintsev also said that in Chernigov, a bridge over the Desna River, a part of a motorway toward Kiev, was blown up under orders from the head of the city and the head of the regional military administration, in order to prevent any attempts by the local population to leave the city.

Mizintsev said that a significant part of the population, which is forcibly held by radicals in Ukrainian cities, is still looking for any opportunity to evacuate to Russia, as is evidenced by the numerous appeals from citizens, through various channels, to Russian government agencies.