Russia and Ukraine agreed a day-long ceasefire around a series of evacuation corridors to allow civilians to escape the fighting, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
Vereshchuk said Moscow vowed to respect the truce from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm around six areas that have been heavily hit by fighting, including regions around Kyiv, in Zaporizhzhia in the south, and some parts of Ukraine s northeast.
Civilians in areas around the capital, including Irpin and Bucha to the northwest, will be evacuated into Kyiv to escape fierce bombardment by Russian forces.
Civilians have been braving shellfire and aerial bombardments to escape the cluster of towns on Kyiv’s northwestern edge, which have been largely occupied by Russian forces.
An exploding shell killed four people who were trying to reach Kyiv by foot on Sunday.
On Tuesday, some 60 buses in two convoys were able to evacuate civilians out of Sumy, 350 kilometres (220 miles) east of Kyiv, Kyrylo Timoshenko of the Ukraine president s office told local media.
More than 5,000 people were evacuated from Sumy, a town of 250,000 that lies close to the Russian border and has been the scene of heavy fighting.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has estimated the total number of refugees at 2.1 to 2.2 million.
The Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers will Thursday hold face-to-face talks in southern Turkey in the first high-level contact between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia invaded its neighbour two weeks ago.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has pushed for Turkey to play a mediation role, has expressed hope the talks can avert tragedy and even help agree a ceasefire.
Senior Ukrainian officials, including the defence minister, have held a sequence of meetings with a Russian delegation in Belarus largely devoted to humanitarian issues, but Moscow has not sent any ministers to the talks.
Lavrov and Kuleba will be joined at the meeting Thursday morning by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with NATO member Turkey keen to maintain strong relations with both sides despite the conflict.
Kuleba confirmed in a video on Facebook he was preparing to meet Lavrov on Thursday, warning that his expectations were “limited”.
He said the success of the talks would depend on “what instructions and directives Lavrov is under” from the Kremlin at the discussions.
“I am not pinning any great hopes on them but we will try and get the most out of” the talks with effective preparation, he said.
The visit to Antalya is the first trip abroad for Lavrov since Russia was isolated by the Western world with biting sanctions that have also targeted President Vladimir Putin s long-serving top diplomat.
