MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Ukrainian nationalists are preventing the evacuation of civilians from hazardous conflict zones, and information about the evacuation is being deliberately covered up by the Kiev regime’s authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"We have been witnessing impediments to the evacuation of local residents and foreign citizens from hazardous zones. The information about humanitarian corridors is deliberately not being publicized. Individuals seeking to leave for Russia are forced to evacuate westward. There were cases when nationalists shot local citizens who wanted to leave the areas of hostilities," the diplomat noted.

Zakharova stressed that Moscow is also raising red flags over Ukraine’s military methods. "We are well aware that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are supported by extremists, who until recently were legally formed into some kind of nationalist paramilitary battalions, but anyway it is now an integral part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the diplomat maintained. "The Russian side registered the Ukrainian army’s use of phosphorus ammunition prohibited by the third Protocol of the UN Convention on Incendiary Weapons."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the leaders of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation. The Russian head of state stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that Russian troops were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. It emphasized that Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed through the use of precision weapons. Civilians are not threatened, the Russian military assured.