Thousands of civilians have left the Ukrainian city of Sumy via a safety corridor agreed with the Russian forces, Ukraine's deputy prime minister says.
Around 5,000 Ukrainians and around 1,700 foreign students were taken to safety on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said according to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN.
The escape routes led, for example, to Poltava in central Ukraine, to Lviv in the west or to neighbouring EU countries.
Sumy is the first of five selected cities where an escape corridor has worked. The city is about 30 kilometres from the Russian border. Russian troops have been attacking Sumy for days.
Poltava is about 170 kilometres to the south and has so far been largely spared by the Russian onslaught.
For the embattled Mariupol, Ukraine is demanding an escape corridor from Russia to Zaporizhzhia, the deputy premier said.
For days attempts have been made in vain to bring aid supplies to Mariupol. According to the Red Cross, 200,000 people are waiting to get out of the port city.
A ceasefire is expected to come into force at 0700 GMT on Wednesday, said Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev from the Defence Ministry.
