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Moscow announces humanitarian corridor for Mariupol steel plant

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The Russian military said it would open a humanitarian corridor on Monday for all civilians holed up in the besieged steel plant in Mariupol. 

The Russian Defence Ministry said its troops will cease fire at 2 p.m local time to allow civilians to safely exit the Azovstal plant, where Ukrainian officials have said up to 1,000 civilians are sheltering. 

The mammoth steel plant, which has a sprawling maze of underground channels, is the last remaining stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic Sea of Azov port city.

Ukrainian troops have stubbornly held out for weeks at the sprawling plant, despite a pummelling from Russian forces and repeated demands for their surrender.

A satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows damage at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Planet Labs PBC/The Associated Press)

Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his forces not to storm the steel plant, but to block it “so that not even a fly comes through.” 

Missile strikes delay passenger trains

The promise of an evacuation corridor came after a series of strikes on Monday morning targeting Ukraine’s railways. 

Lviv region Gov. Maksym Kozytskyy said a Russian missile hit a railway facility in Krasne, about 40 kilometres east of Lviv, early Monday, sparking a fire.

Columns of thick black smoke rose from the site of a Russian missile strike on Monday morning, at the Krasne railway station in the Zolochiv region of western Ukraine. (Jean-Francois Benoit/CBC)

Oleksandr Kamyshin, the head of the state-run Ukrainian Railways, said a total of five rail facilities in central and western Ukraine have been hit by the Russian strikes. He said the attacks have delayed at least passenger 16 trains.

There was no immediate information about the extent of the damage from the strikes.

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