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Despite the reached agreements, the Ukrainian authorities and troops continue to prevent civilians and foreign citizens from leaving through the established humanitarian corridors. Civilians who do not participate in hostilities become hostages, meaning that the Ukrainian troops violate the international humanitarian law. Also, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine I. A. Vereshchuk opposed the evacuation of civilians to Russia through humanitarian corridors.

The Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia instructed the Central Office of the department to document all known instances of preventing the evacuation of civilians and to investigate them within a criminal case on hostage-taking (Article 206 of the Criminal Code). Each such case will be scrutinized within the preliminary investigation in order to provide legal evaluation of these actions and to hold the perpetrators criminally liable.