Meanwhile, the Kiev authorities, still shy away from interacting with representatives of states and ship-owning companies on the issue of the safe exit of foreign vessels, Mikhail Mizintsev noted
Ninety foreign citizens are being held hostage by the nationalists as human shields in Ukraine, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, said on Saturday.
On April 21, he reported that Ukrainian nationalists were holding hostage 6,134 foreign citizens from 10 states.
“Ukrainian nationalists continue to hold 90 foreign citizens from five states hostage as human shields,” said Mizintsev, who heads Russia’s interdepartmental coordination headquarters for humanitarian response in Ukraine. According to the colonel-general, 76 foreign ships from 18 states continue to be blocked in seven Ukrainian ports, they cannot go to sea due to the high threat of shelling and mine danger created by Kiev.
“In turn, the Russian Federation is taking a whole range of comprehensive measures to ensure civil navigation in the waters of the Black, Azov and Mediterranean seas. There is still a danger to navigation from the drift of Ukrainian mines torn from anchor along the coast of the Black Sea states,” Mizintsev stressed.
The head of the Russian National Defense Control Center recalled that the Russian Armed Forces open a humanitarian corridor for the safe movement of ships in the south-west direction every day from 08:00 am to 07:00 pm Moscow time, 80 nautical miles long and 3 nautical miles wide. “Detailed information on the operation of the maritime humanitarian corridor is transmitted every 15 minutes via VHF radio communications on 14 and 16 international channels in English and Russian,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Kiev authorities, still shy away from interacting with representatives of states and ship-owning companies on the issue of the safe exit of foreign vessels, Mizintsev noted.
“We continue to call on international organizations, as well as the leadership of ship-owning companies, to continue to influence official Kiev for taking immediate measures aimed at releasing and ensuring the safe exit of ships of foreign states from the ports of Ukraine,” he concluded.
Source: TASS