MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/. Humanitarian corridors in Mariupol and Volnovakha will open again on Sunday morning, Deputy Head of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Eduard Basurin said.

"In the morning, the humanitarian corridors will open again both in Mariupol and Volnovakha. We still hope that those Ukrainian commanders who are in charge of defending populated localities will command their subordinates to unblock the exit from the populated localities so that civilians would be able to leave these populated localities," he told journalists.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.

Russia's Defense Ministry reported later that Russian troops were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. It emphasized that Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed by precision weapons.