KIEV – Ukraine on Sunday started evacuating civilians from Mariupol, a port city in Donetsk, an official said. The evacuation starts at midday local time (1000 GMT), Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Facebook.

Ukrainian news agency UNIAN reported that buses are heading to Mariupol to evacuate civilians. Earlier, Russian forces said they would observe a truce in some parts of Ukraine starting at 10:00 a.m. Moscow time on Saturday to facilitate the evacuation of civilians via humanitarian corridors.

During their second round of peace talks on Thursday, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed to establish humanitarian corridors to exit civilians and temporarily cease hostilities along the evacuation routes.