(VOVworld) – Russia welcomed an announcement from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about creating humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from battlefields in south eastern Ukraine, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a meeting on Tuesday with German and Polish Foreign Ministers in Saint-Petersburg.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (C), his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier (L) and Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski attend a news conference in St. Petersburg on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuteurs)

Lavrov also said that he hoped that the announcement would be followed by action and that Moscow respected Kiev’s choice to sign an association agreement with the EU and would not impose sanctions on Kiev. He emphasised that Ukraine’s alliance with the EU meant that it would not enjoy any trade preferential treatment from the Commonwealth of Independent States (SNG) and Russia-Ukraine trade ties would return to “most-favoured nation” status. The US also expressed its support for Ukraine’s efforts to protect Ukrainian citizens and called on the Kiev government to co-operate with the UN and other humanitarian organisations.