Ukraine starts evacuating civilians from Sumy and Irpin, officials say

"As of 09:30 (0730 GMT), more than 150 people have been evacuated and (evacuation) activities are underway," said Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region. Civilians have been trapped by fighting since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Ukraine began evacuating civilians from the northeastern city of Sumy and from the town of Irpin near the capital Kyiv on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said.

The evacuations began after Russian and Ukrainian officials agreed to establish "humanitarian corridors" to allow civilians out of some towns and cities besieged by Russian forces. "As of 09:30 (0730 GMT), more than 150 people have been evacuated and (evacuation) activities are underway," said Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region.

Civilians have been trapped by fighting since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation." Russia opened humanitarian corridors on Tuesday so that people can be evacuated from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Mariupol, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian defense ministry as saying.

The defense ministry added that Russian forces in Ukraine had introduced a "silent regime" from 0700 GMT, Interfax reported. Ukraine on Monday rejected Russian proposals to evacuate Ukrainians to Russia or Belarus.

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