People use safe corridors to flee embattled Ukrainian cities

Lviv: Evacuations of people fleeing embattled Ukrainian cities along safe corridors began on Tuesday, while UN officials said the exodus of refugees from Russia's invasion reached 2 million. The Russian onslaught has trapped people inside cities that are running low on food, water and medicine amid the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II.

Previous attempts to lead civilians to safety have crumbled with renewed attacks. But on Tuesday, video posted by Ukrainian officials showed buses with people moving along a snowy road from the eastern city of Sumy and yellow buses with a red cross on them heading toward the southern port of Mariupol. It was not clear how long the efforts would last.

"The Ukrainian city of Sumy was given a green corridor, the first stage of evacuation began," the Ukrainian State communications agency tweeted. While some people fled to other cities in Ukraine, many have chosen to leave the country instead. Safa Msehli, a spokesperson for the UN's International Organisation for Migration, tweeted that 2 million have now left, including at least 100,000 people who are not Ukrainian.

With the invasion well into its second week, Russian troops have made significant advances in southern Ukraine but stalled in some other regions. Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers fortified the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of checkpoints and barricades designed to thwart a takeover. A steady rain of shells and rockets fell on other population centers, including the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where the mayor reported heavy artillery fire. "We can't even gather up the bodies because the shelling from heavy weapons doesn't stop day or night," Mayor Anatol Fedoruk said.

"Dogs are pulling apart the bodies on the city streets. It's a nightmare." In one of the most desperate cities, Mariupol, an estimated 2,00,000 people — nearly half the population of 4,30,000 — hoped to flee.