MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. Nationalists planted mines on the premises of the Azov State University in Mariupol, Chief of Russia’s National Defense Control Center Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Response Coordination Headquarters on Thursday.

"The Azov State University in Mariupol has been mined," Mizintsev said, specifying that remotely-controlled explosive devices had also been planted around the building.

In Mariupol, 60 civilians have been stopped on their way to a humanitarian corridor for evacuation and taken by force to school No. 34. The school building has also been mined, he said.

"Now the terrorists are using these civilians as a human shield. They are threatening the advancing forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic that they may blow up the school and the hostages," Mizintsev said.

Currently, tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been blocked in Kiev, Kharkov, Sumy, Odessa and Mariupol and also in no less than 20 other large populated areas, he stressed.

Meanwhile, the Russian side is ready at any moment to create humanitarian corridors in Ukraine, Mizintsev said.

"The Russian side has already created all the necessary conditions for the safe evacuation. We are ready at any moment and in any direction to create corresponding humanitarian corridors," the general said.