The Russian defence ministry will declare a ceasefire on Friday and open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of Ukrainians from five cities, the RIA and Interfax news agencies have reported.
The agencies quoted Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defence Control Centre, on Thursday as saying people could either travel to Russia or other cities in Ukraine.
"From 10am Moscow time on March 11, 2022, the Russian Federation will declares a 'regime of silence' and is ready to provide humanitarian corridors," Interfax said, citing a statement from Mizintsev.
The five cities are: Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv.
Ukrainian officials complain that Russians have broken the terms of previous agreements while Moscow accuses Ukrainian forces of disrupting the operations.
Not a single civilian was able to leave Mariupol on Thursday as Russian forces failed to respect a temporary ceasefire to allow evacuations, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on national television.
RIA quoted officials as saying the Ukrainian side would have to provide lists of people and vehicle registration numbers before the corridors were opened.
Talks between Ukraine and Russia's foreign ministers on Thursday failed to bring any respite in the two-week-old conflict as hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped in Ukrainian cities sheltering from Russian air raids and shelling.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine entering its third week, officials in Mariupol said Russian warplanes again bombed the encircled southern port city where a maternity hospital was pulverised on Wednesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian authorities had managed to evacuate almost 40,000 people from the cities of Sumy, Trostyanets, Krasnopillya, Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and Izyum, but Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said not a single civilian was able to leave Mariupol on Thursday as Russian forces failed to respect a temporary ceasefire to allow evacuations.
Efforts to send food, water and medicine into the city failed when Russian tanks attacked a humanitarian corridor, Zelenskiy said.
"This is outright terror ... from experienced terrorists," he said in a televised address.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has so far failed to reach its stated objectives, but has caused thousands of deaths and forced more than 2 million people to flee Ukraine, where several cities are under siege.
It has also hit the world's economy, still emerging from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
