Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukraine denounces evacuation routes leading to Russia, Belarus; talks set to resume

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said Moscow’s offer of humanitarian corridors for Ukrainian refugees to flee to Russia is “moral and political cynicism.”

Macron, in an interview with French news channel LCI on Monday, called for complete cease-fires to allow civilians to evacuate embattled or besieged Ukrainian cities — not “corridors that are immediately threatened, and not this hypocritical discourse, which consists in saying: ‘We are going to protect people to bring them to Russia.’ ” That is “not serious,” he said, “it is moral and political cynicism, which is unbearable to me.”

The release of the interview follows a heated back-and-forth between French and Russian officials over humanitarian corridors on Monday. The French president’s office denied claims that Macron had personally requested humanitarian corridors to Russia, appearing to contradict Russian authorities.

Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken for almost two hours on Sunday to discuss the safety of nuclear power plants in Ukraine and other subjects, including humanitarian concerns.

A senior French official later said Macron and other partners were advocating for civilian evacuations from the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, but the official did not mention humanitarian corridors leading to Russia.

Russian officials said humanitarian corridors would be opened Monday morning local time, including from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, following “French President Emmanuel Macron’s personal request to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

The routes described by Interfax suggested that the corridor from Kyiv would force residents to evacuate toward Belarus, whereas residents fleeing the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv would be forced to evacuate toward Russia. Two other humanitarian corridors — from the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol in the south and Sumy in the northeast — appeared to also include options that end in Russian or Ukrainian territory, Reuters reported.

“It’s another way for Putin to push his narrative and say that it is the Ukrainians who are the aggressors and they are the ones who offer asylum to everyone,” an Élysée official told France’s BFM television on Monday.

In a response, the Élysée said “we ask that the Russians stop fighting” and demand the protection of civilians and the sending of aid.

Annabelle Timsit contributed to this report.

In the eastern Ukrainian town of Starobilsk recently captured by Russian-backed separatists, local residents remove and burn a flag of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic in visuals verified by The Washington Post. The video filmed on Sunday shows dozens of protesters singing the Ukrainian national anthem as a separate group lowers the recently raised flag outside a local government administrative building. An unidentified man snatches the flag off the pole as the crowd cheers and then tosses it to the ground. A second video reviewed by The Post shows the flag smoldering on the ground.

A battle in the city of Bila Tserkva, south of Kyiv, left nearby buildings destroyed. Windows and doors were blown out. Walls were littered with shrapnel. Many residents have fled, sheltering with relatives or leaving the country. These are the stories of the ones left behind.

As the shells fall, one woman struggles to bury her husband

Accounting heavyweights KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on Sunday became the latest global firms to wind down their operations in Russia as a show of support for Ukraine.

KPMG and PwC said Sunday that their Russian firms would leave their networks as part of a corporate move to cease operations in the country after its invasion of Ukraine. It comes amid a Western-led campaign to target Russia’s economy and its elites.

In a statement, KPMG said: “We believe we have a responsibility, along with other global businesses, to respond to the Russian government’s ongoing military attack on Ukraine. As a result, our Russia and Belarus firms will leave the KPMG network.” The statement said KPMG firms in those countries employ more than 4,500 people.

PwC said in its statement, “As a result of the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine we have decided that, under the circumstances, PwC should not have a member firm in Russia and consequently PwC Russia will leave the network.” The firm employs 3,700 people in Russia, the statement said. In its own statement, PwC Russia said it “is leaving the network of PwC member firms, but will continue cooperation.”

People fleeing Ukraine — mostly women and children — continue to arrive in Poland, the main country where Ukrainians are seeking safety from Russia’s bombardment, along with other neighboring nations including Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

The Polish Border Guard said in a tweet Sunday that more than 1 million people had crossed into the country since Feb. 24.

There are “a million human tragedies, a million people banished from their homes by the war,” the tweet said. “A million people who, after crossing the border, heard from our border guard officers: ‘You are safe.’ ”

“Check-in is as simplified as possible,” Polish Border Guard spokeswoman Anna Michalska told Reuters. “The point is to confirm the identity of persons, verify documents, check the databases if they are not wanted persons. It takes a few minutes.”

At a border crossing in the village of Medyka, some huddled under blankets in low temperatures, while young children rested among teddy bears and donated clothing. Others held one another, and their pets, close.

After more than a week of devastating war, the race is on to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. But what world leader could earn the trust of both Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine suggests a paranoid and aggrieved mind-set, and his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who has made clear he is willing to fight to the end for his country?

When conflict erupted between Russia and Ukraine in 2014, following Moscow’s support for separatists in Donbas and its annexation of Crimea, European powers France and Germany played that mediating role in what was dubbed the Normandy format. Belarus’s capital became the site of negotiations that eventually led to the Minsk agreements. But the Minsk agreements stalled, in part because Kyiv felt they were unfair because they were negotiated from a position of weakness.

Eight people were killed and more were wounded during an evacuation over the weekend of civilians in Irpin, a city northwest of Kyiv, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Monday. The wounded included the mayor of the nearby town of Bucha, the ministry said.

Russia has said it would allow the evacuation of civilians from some besieged Ukrainian cities, but authorities on the ground have accused Russian forces of violating promised cease-fires designed to facilitate safe passage. The evacuation of Irpin was ongoing as of noon local time on Monday.

Irpin Mayor Alexandar Markushin said in a video Sunday that Russian troops shelled the town’s residents as they were preparing to evacuate by bus to nearby cities. “The shell hit, and in front of my own eyes died two small children and two adults,” Markushin said. “I want to emphasize these were peaceful residents.”

Photographs and videos from journalists on the ground showed harrowing images of the lifeless bodies of several people — including two children — sprawled on the ground moments after the attack.

The Foreign Ministry said Monday an attempt to create a “green corridor” for civilians to safely flee Irpin failed, with eight dead and more wounded, including the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk.

Separately, the city council of Hostomel, another suburb of Kyiv, said Sunday that its leader, Yuri Prylipko, was shot by Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday awarded the title of “Hero City” to Hostomel and five other locations in Ukraine that have been the target of Russian forces, local media outlets reported.

Paulina Villegas, David Stern and Sarah Cahlan contributed to this report.

Senior U.S. officials flew to Venezuela on Saturday for a meeting with President Nicolás Maduro’s government to discuss the possibility of easing sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports as the Biden administration considers a ban on imports of Russian oil and gas, according to two people familiar with the situation, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic talks.

The trip is the highest-level U.S. visit to the socialist nation in years and comes as the United States is seeking to isolate Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Venezuela, the Kremlin’s most important ally in South America, used to be a significant supplier of crude to the United States before exports were hobbled by domestic mismanagement and major sanctions from Washington.

In recent weeks, former American lawmakers have pushed for the United States to ban Russian oil and gas exports while lifting restrictions on Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves.

The U.S. delegation included Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs; Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs; and Jimmy Story, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said one person familiar with the visit.

The State Department and the White House declined to comment.

In recent weeks, some U.S. investors have called on the administration to lift sanctions on Venezuela so it can send more crude oil into the market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Chevron has also lobbied the administration to modify its license to accept and trade oil in Venezuela.

But some Republicans, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have criticized the decision by U.S. officials to travel to Venezuela, a trip reported earlier by the New York Times.