Russia discard cease-fire for civilian departure amid Eastern Orthodox Holy Week

The UN secretary general sought a brief cease-fire in Ukraine for the sake of civilian evacuation during the Eastern Orthodox Holy Week running up to Easter, but Russia refused it. The cease-fire request was not real and would merely give Ukrainian military more time to arm themselves said by Russia’s deputy UN ambassador

The deputy ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told the Security Council that the cease-fire requests were “insincere,” and that they “merely point to an aspiration to provide Kyiv nationalists breathing room to regroup and receive more drones, anti-tank missiles, and “MANPADS,” which refers to man-portable air-defense systems, smaller and more portable surface-to-air missiles.

Despite Russia’s rejection of a cease-fire, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced that Ukraine and Russia had achieved an agreement on a humanitarian corridor to evacuate women, children, and the elders from Mariupol starting at 2 p.m. It’s unclear whether the corridor will be maintained, as similar attempts have frequently failed, with each side blaming the other.

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