MOSCOW, May 3 ― More than 11,500 people, including 1,847 children, were transported from Ukraine into Russia yesterday without the participation of Kyiv's authorities, Russia's defence ministry said.

That number includes evacuations from Russian-backed breakaway regions of Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's republics, which Russia recognised as independent just before launching its February 24th invasion.

Russia says the people have been evacuated on their own request, while Ukraine has said Moscow has forcefully deported thousands of people to Russia since the war's beginning.

Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation” to demilitarise and "denazify” its neighbour. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

Yesterday the first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in the besieged port of Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia, as part of a United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross operation coordinated with Ukraine and Russia.

Since February 24, nearly 200,000 children and 1.1 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine into Russia, the defence ministry said. ― Reuters