LVIV (Ukraine), March 11 ― Not a single civilian was able to leave the encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol yesterday as Russian forces failed to respect a temporary ceasefire to allow evacuations, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on national television.

Efforts to send food, water and medicine into the city failed when Russian tanks attacked a humanitarian corridor, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address.

"This is outright terror ... from experienced terrorists,” he said. "The world needs to know this. I have to admit it - we are all dealing with a terrorist state.”

Zelenskiy said Ukrainian authorities managed to evacuate almost 40,000 people yesterday from five other cities.

Russia's defence ministry said earlier it would declare a ceasefire today and open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol as well as Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv. ― Reuters