Statement of the Joint Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response (June 4, 2022)
The Russian Federation's Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response continues to carefully record the facts of the inhumane treatment of civilians and use of residential buildings, schools, kindergartens and other social infrastructure facilities for military purposes by Ukrainian armed groups:
in Kharkov, the nationalists have deployed firing positions and artillery guns in the yards of the apartment blocks located at Astronomicheskaya street. Residents are prohibited to abandon their apartments under the pretext of security.
in Slavyansk, Donetsk People's Republic, the militants of Ukrainian nationalist groups have been deployed in the schools №5 and №6, in a music school, in a railroad specialised school, in a chemical-mechanical technical school and in a boarding school, as well as the heavy armament and armoured equipment have been deployed at a compound feed plant;
in Druzhkovka, Donetsk People's Republic, the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have deployed a command post in the school №1 (Olesya Gonchara st.), as well as multiple rocket launchers in the apartment blocks located at Sobornaya street, while its residents had been intentionally left without evacuation.
Despite the fact that this criminal action can result in causing victims among civilians, the militants of the Ukrainian armed groups launch deliberate attacks from residential areas at the positions of the Russian Armed Forces in order to provoke their counter-attack and to accuse Russian servicemen of the consequences from allegedly indiscriminate attacks.
We reiterate that the units of the Russian Armed Forces treat the civilian population with an exclusive humanity and do not launch attacks at civilian infrastructure facilities during the special military operation.
In addition, the AFU units are retreating towards Lisichansk after suffering critical losses (up to 90% in various units) during the combats for Severodonetsk.
Realising the impossibility to continue resisting and holding the industrial area in Severodonetsk, the authorities in Kiev have ordered the combined tactical group (survivors from 79th Independent Air Assault Brigade of the AFU, 117th and 118th Independent Territorial Defence Brigade) to plant saltpetre and nitric acid tanks of a volume above 100 tonnes at Azot entity located in Severodonetsk. According to the plan of the Kiev regime, the explosion of these toxic chemical reservoirs is to delay the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces units by creating a chemically contaminated area.
Ukrainian nationalists are not deterred by the fact that this terrorist act with the involvement toxic chemicals can result in causing victims among innocent civilians as it already happened to the residents of Kremennaya and Rubezhnoye after the nationalists exploded a nitric acid reservoir at the same plant on May 31, 2022.
At the same time, in case of implementing this inhumane provocation, the Kiev authorities plan to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of commiting a technogenic ecological disaster and to widely spread this information in Ukrainian and Western mass media in accordance with the practiced scenario.
Despite all the difficulties and obstacles imposed by the Ukrainian side, 20,167 people have been evacuated from dangerous areas of Ukraine and Donbass over the past 24 hours, including 2,695 children, and in total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 1,655,107 people have already been evacuated, including 268,189 are children. The state border of the Russian Federation has been crossed by 238,968 private motor vehicles, including 3,528 over the past 24 hours.
More than 9,5 thousand temporary accommodation centres continue to operate in the regions of the Russian Federation. The arriving refugees are individually attended and promptly assisted in resolving vital issues related to their further accomodation, employment, providing children with pre-school and educational services, as well as supplying with social benefits and allowances.
Over the past 24 hours, the hotline of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response, federal executive authorities, regions of the Russian Federation and various non-governmental organisations have received 53 requests from foreign and Ukrainian citizens to evacuate to Russia, the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, as well as to the Russian Armed Forces-controlled areas of Zaporozhye, Nikolaev, Kharkov and Kherson regions. In total, the database has received 2,757,479 requests of this kind from 2,137 settlements of Ukraine.
In addition, 70 foreign vessels from 16 countries remain blocked in six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhniy). The threat of shelling and high mine danger posed by official Kiev prevent vessels from entering the high seas unhindered.
As a result of a series of measures taken by the Russian Navy, the Mariupol harbour has been cleared of mines, the port infrastructure is routinely under reconstruction.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have created the necessary conditions for the operation of two maritime humanitarian corridors that constitute safe lanes for navigation:
in the Black Sea (every day from 08:00 AM to 07:00 PM) to leave Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhnyi ports towards south-west from Ukraine's territorial sea, 139 miles long and 3 miles wide;
in the Sea of Azov (uninterruptedly) to leave Mariupol port, 115 miles long and 2 miles wide, towards the Black Sea.
Detailed information on the modus operandi of the maritime humanitarian corridors is broadcast daily every 15 minutes by VHF radio on 14 and 16 international channels in English and Russian.
The Kiev authorities continue to avoid engaging with representatives of states and ship-owning companies to resolve the issue of ensuring the safe passage of foreign vessels to the assembly area.
The danger to navigation from Ukrainian mines drifting off their anchors along the coasts of Black Sea states remains.
The Russian Federation is taking a full range of comprehensive measures to ensure the safety of civilian navigation in the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Demining detachments of the Russian Armed Forces and the EMERCOM of Russia are carrying out land and facility clearance tasks in the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics.
A total of 2,772.04 hectares were explored (including 75.53 hectares over the past 24 hours), 35 buildings (including 13 socially important facilities), 1 bridge and 9.64 km of roads. 13,801 explosives have been detected and neutralised, including 310 of them over the past 24 hours.
Federal executive authorities, in coordination with the regions of the Russian Federation, various public organizations, patriotic movements, continue to accumulate humanitarian aid. More than 30 thousand tonnes of basic necessities and food kits, including baby food and life-saving medicines, have been prepared at collection points.
The greatest contributors to the relief effort were:
Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters, Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport, Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Federal Agency for Nationalities;
republics of Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Crimea, Tatarstan, Chechen Republic, Altai, Trans-Baikal, Krasnodar and Khabarovsk regions, Arkhangelsk, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Samara, Sverdlovsk, Tula, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk and Yaroslavl regions, Nenets Autonomous District, as well as the cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg;
among political parties and non-profit organisations: United Russia, the All-Russian Public Movement 'People's Front', the All-Russian Public Organisation of Veterans 'Battle Brotherhood', the autonomous non-profit organisation to support humanitarian programmes 'Russian Humanitarian Mission', the Open Joint Stock Company 'Russian Railways', the State Atomic Energy Corporation 'Rosatom' and the All-Russian Public State Organisation 'Union of Russian Women'.
Since March 2, 26,225.3 tons of humanitarian cargo have already been delivered by the Russian Federation to Ukraine, 1,103 humanitarian campaigns have been carried out, including 4 campaigns in the Donetsk People's Republic, Kharkov and Kherson regions, during which 387 tonnes of humanitarian aid were distributed to the civilian population of the liberated areas.
On June 4, 2022, 12 humanitarian campaigns are being carried out in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, in Kharkov and Kherson regions, during which 624.4 tonnes of basic necessities, medicine and food are distributed.