BRUSSELS: President Emmanuel Macron said Friday France was working with Turkey and Greece on a 鈥渉umanitarian operation鈥� to evacuate people from the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol under attack by Russian forces.
鈥淲e are going to work with Turkey and Greece to launch a humanitarian operation to evacuate all those who wish to leave Mariupol,鈥� Macron said after an EU summit in Brussels.
鈥淚 will have a new discussion with (Russian) President Vladimir Putin within the next 48 to 72 hours to work out the details and secure the modalities,鈥� he said.
The French leader said he hoped to 鈥渂e able to involve the maximum number of stakeholders in this operation.鈥�
He said that he wanted to be 鈥渋n a position鈥� to conduct the evacuation 鈥渋n the next few days.鈥�
Macron said that French officials had spoken Friday to the mayor of Mariupol and that the 150,000 remaining residents were left trapped in 鈥渄ramatic conditions.鈥�
Authorities in the city have put the death toll in the city at over 2,000, and said Friday that a single strike last week on a theater where civilians were sheltering was feared to have killed 300 people.
Russia has made the port city a major focus of its brutal onslaught on Ukraine as it tries to link up the annexed Crimea peninsula with Moscow-controlled areas in the east.
The Kremlin鈥檚 devastating attack on Mariupol has drawn parallels with the bombardments by Russian forces that flattened Chechen capital Grozny and Syria鈥檚 Aleppo.