Moscow hopes Kyiv uses influence on evacuation thwarters - Slutsky

MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - Kyiv has the leverage over the mobs of armed nationalists who stopped people leaving via the humanitarian corridors, and Moscow hopes that this leverage will be utilized, the head of the Duma foreign affairs committee and a member of the Russian delegation at the talks with Ukraine, Leonid Slutsky, said.

"Today many of them [such mobs] are operating completely on their own. But, at the same time, Kyiv can, of course, and must influence on these people. The leverage is there, certainly. It is this leverage and its imposition upon this crowd that was the subject matter of a detailed discussion at the third round of Russia-Ukraine consultations," Slutsky said on Rossiya-24 television on Monday.

"There are reasons to assume that subsequent attempts will be efficient, deaths will be avoided, we cannot afford to experiment on the unarmed people waiting to be led out via these corridors," he said.

"We cannot allow them to become live targets," which is why there is "great tension around this issue," he said. "I stress: I do hope with good reason that subsequent attempts, subsequent corridors that will open shortly will be effective, and people from Volnovakha and elsewhere will exit through those corridors," Slutsky said.