MOSCOW, August 31, /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights commissioner on Sunday criticized the Ukrainian authorities for not using offered humanitarian corridors for the retreat of encircled Ukrainian troops.
“Kiev’s unwillingness to use humanitarian corridors to withdraw law enforces shows a real ‘readiness’ of the regime to save the lives of its people,” tweeted Konstantin Dolgov, ministry’s commissioner for human rights, democracy and supremacy of law.
“There is no limit to cynicism and irresponsibility of the authorities responsible for the punitive operation,” he said.
Earlier in the week, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged militias in the embattled southeast of Ukraine to open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukrainian military. However, he said, “the command of the Ukrainian Army decided not to let them out of the cauldron and to attempt to force apart militia forces and battle out their way from the encirclement”.
“In my opinion, this is a tremendous mistake, which could result in mass human casualties,” Putin said.
Putin said many servicemen participated in the Kiev-organized military operation in the southeast not on their own will but as soldiers upon orders. He called on Kiev authorities to immediately stop fighting and sit down to the negotiating table with Donbass representatives. Donetsk People’s Republic Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko told Russian Rossiya-24 television channel on Friday that the republic's leaders supported the initiative of the Russian president.
"With all due respect for Vladimir Putin, the president of the country, which is the first to support us morally, we are ready to provide humanitarian corridors for encircled Ukrainian troops on condition that they surrender weapons and ammunition, so that the weaponry and ammunition could not be used against us," he said.