The first column of 22 buses with citizens evacuated from Sumy has already arrived in Poltava. The second column of 39 buses has reached the Poltava region.
This is reported by the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
Among the evacuated, there are 100 foreign students who will continue their journey to Lviv.
“The people can choose whether they wish to stay in Poltava or go further, to Lviv. The humanitarian corridor was also used by the drivers of civil cars,” Tymoshenko writes.
He thanks the residents of Sumy for these 13 days they have been fighting courageously with the enemy.
As a reminder, today from 9 am to 9 pm, the humanitarian corridor for the city of Sumy was organized.
This was agreed with the Russian Federation in the official letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The route of the corridor for evacuation is only one: Sumy – Holubivka – Lokhvytsia – Lubny – Poltava. No other routes have been agreed.
Around 11 am, the first evacuation column left Sumy. The second one followed around 4.30 pm. During the evacuation, occupiers opened fire at the exit of the city checkpoint, in the direction to Romny. However, they didn’t shoot at the buses.
“It wasn’t a fight or a shooting. It was Russian military equipment accompanied by a tank. The people sitting on the armour were leading their artillery. When they saw the checkpoint, they started chaotic shooting at the field, trees, and up in the air. Then they got scared and went further to the Lebedynska route, to Nyzy,” says Zhyvytskyi, Head of the Regional State Administration.