Stillhart said that it was "extremely frustrating" that it took weeks of painstaking work to get Russian and Ukrainian authorities on board and to work out logistic details so that combatants at every checkpoint knew when buses would drive by. The ICRC and the United Nations have been working to get civilians out from the Azovstal steel plant, which is also the last holdout for remaining Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol, a southern port city that has been reduced to ruins by weeks of Russian bombardment. We hope that we can now build on this minimum of trust," Dominik Stillhart, the ICRC's director of operations, told Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday. "Experience shows that a successful action helps further evacuations because now both sides have seen that it works.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hopes the successful evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol will pave the way for more people to get out of the complex, a senior ICRC official said. US officials have said the United States has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian assault, but have denied that this intelligence includes precise targeting data. However, the United States and its NATO allies have repeatedly said they will not take part in fighting themselves, in order to avoid becoming parties to the conflict. Washington and European members of the transatlantic NATO alliance have supplied Kyiv with heavy weapons to help it resist a Russian offensive that has resulted in the occupation of parts of eastern and southern Ukraine but failed to take Kyiv. "Washington is essentially coordinating and developing military operations, thereby directly participating in military actions against our country," Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel.
involvement in military action against Russia. Russia's most senior lawmaker on Saturday accused Washington of coordinating military operations in Ukraine, which he said amounted to direct U.S.