MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th March, 2022) Ukrainian radicals continue to use civilians as a "live shield" and there are already over 2.7 million people who wish to evacuate to Russia, the head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Mikhail Mizintsev said.
"According to the results of daily monitoring, it was established that over the past 24 hours alone, 7,223 additional requests (to evacuate from Ukraine to Russia) were received, and in total, there are already 2,711,319 specific Names and specific addresses in our database from 2,093 settlements of Ukraine," Mizintsev said on Saturday.
He added that Ukrainian nationalists continue to hold over 4.5 million civilians captive by using them as a "live shield" in Kiev, Kharkiv, Sumy and over 20 other Ukrainian cities. According to Mizintsev, there are also 6,830 foreign citizens from 19 different countries and the crews of 70 foreign ships who also remain blocked by nationalists in Ukraine.
In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against the Kiev forces. Russia said that the aim of its special operation is to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine and that only military infrastructure is being targeted. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the goal is to protect the people of Donbas, "who have been subjected to abuse, genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years."
