It is vital to accelerate the creation of humanitarian corridors giving civilians safe passage from conflict zones in war-wracked Ukraine, Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Thursday.
Ukrainian and Russian authorities as well as international actors such as the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Red Cross should be involved in setting up the humanitarian corridors, Di Maio told Italy's envoys in Lviv and Moscow, Pierfrancesco Zazo and Giorgio Starace.
Di Maio made the remarks during a meeting at the foreign ministry's crisis unit with Zazo and Starace at which assistance to almost 450 Italians remaining in Ukraine was also a focus.
Over three million Ukrainians have fled their homeland since Russia launched its devastating military offensive on 24 February, and the tally could reach as many as five million in what is becoming the worst refugee crisis since World War II, according to the UN.
A further two million Ukrainians have been internally displaced by Russia's full-scale offensive, the UN says.
