Aerial video posted online showed hundreds of people crowding onto the road near Zaporizhzhia’s nuclear power plant, which hosts six of the country’s 15 reactors.
Several trucks and vehicles were parked across the road. Dozens of tires and what appeared to be sandbags were also piled high as makeshift barricades.
It comes after Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company Energoatom on Monday denied reports that Russia had gained control of the power plant, according to the Interfax news agency.
This was as Russia on Wednesday bragged about a series of “successful offensive actions” in Ukraine — while insisting its forces were sparing civilians and leaving them free to flee their under-siege cities.
“The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation take measures to ensure the security of the civilian population of Ukraine,” Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
Ukraine claimed Wednesday that more than 2,000 civilians were dead, saying that women and children were among those “losing their lives every hour.”
The Russian military official instead insisted invading forces had ensured clear routes out of the cities under fiercest assault, including Mariupol, Kharkiv and capital Kyiv. NYP.