A group of 20 civilians are leaving the Azovstal steelworks, where the last Ukrainian troops are holed up in the Black Sea port of Mariupol, the soldiers there said today.
"Twenty civilians, women and children... have been transferred to a suitable place and we hope that they will be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, on territory controlled by Ukraine," said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment.
Earlier today, a correspondent from Russia's TASS news agency reported from the city that 25 civilians - including six children younger than 14 - had quit the site.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ordered a blockade of the steelworks, where several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are still sheltering in the maze of Soviet-era underground tunnels.
Many require medical attention.
Denis Pushilin, leader of the breakaway eastern region of Donetsk, had accused Ukrainian forces of "acting like outright terrorists" and holding civilians hostage in the steel plant.
Also today, Ukrainian police reported finding three bodies shot in the head with their hands tied near the town of Bucha, which has become synonymous with allegations of Russian war crimes.
The three bodies found in a pit were "brutally killed" by Russian soldiers - each shot in the head, the police said in a statement.
"The victims' hands were tied, cloths were covering their eyes and some were gagged. There are traces of torture on the corpses," it said.
Ukraine's military said Russian planes had continued to launch strikes on Mariupol today,
Russian forces also kept up their relentless shelling across the east of the country, killing at least one person and injuring 12 more.
The general staff of the armed forces also said the Ukrainian military had regained control over four settlements in the Kharkiv region.
In Odessa, regional governor Maxim Marchenko said a Russian missile destroyed the airport runway - as Russia targets infrastructure and supply lines deep in the west of the country.
There were no victims from the airport strike.
One of the areas taken back from Russian control was the village of Ruska Lozova which evacuees said had been occupied for two months.
"It was two months of terrible fear. Nothing else, a terrible and relentless fear," Natalia, a 28-year-old evacuee from Ruska Lozova, told AFP after reaching Kharkiv.
"We were in the basements without food for two months, we were eating what we had," said Svyatoslav, 40, who did not want to give his full name, his eyes red with fatigue.
Thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour began on 24 February.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby yesterday briefly choked with emotion as he described the destruction in Ukraine and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of "depravity".
Ukrainian prosecutors say they have pinpointed more than 8,000 war crimes carried out by Russian troops and are investigating 10 Russian soldiers for suspected atrocities in Bucha.
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, meanwhile, reported that 14 Ukrainians including a pregnant soldier had been freed in the latest prisoner exchange with Russian forces.
She did not say how many Russians had been returned.
Kyiv has admitted that Russian forces have captured a string of villages in the Donbas region.
"Even if there has been some advance by Russian troops on the ground, it is not very fast," Russian military expert Alexander Khramchikhin told AFP.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the "special military operation... is proceeding strictly according to plan", China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
More Western armaments are due to arrive in Ukraine, with US President Joe Biden on Thursday seeking billions of dollars from Congress to boost supplies.
Following a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Emmanuel Macron said today that France would also "intensify" military and humanitarian support.
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Russia has warned Western countries against sending more military aid.
"If the US and NATO are really interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis, then first of all, they should wake up and stop supplying the Kyiv regime with arms and ammunition," Minister Lavrov said.
Elsewhere, Ukraine's deputy agriculture minister said that Russian forces have stolen "several hundred thousand tonnes" of grain in the areas of Ukraine they occupy.
Speaking to Ukrainian national TV, Taras Vysotskiy expressed concern that most of what he said was 1.5 million tonnes of grain stored in occupied territory could also be stolen by Russian forces.
The Kremlin denied Ukraine's allegations, saying it did not know where the information was coming from.
After failing to capture Kyiv in a nine-week assault that has turned cities to rubble, killed thousands and forced five million Ukrainians to flee abroad, Russia is now focusing on the east and south of Ukraine.
Moscow hopes to take full control of the eastern Donbas region made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, parts of which were already controlled by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion.
Moscow said today its artillery units had struck 389 Ukrainian targets overnight.
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk, told Ukrainian public television that the Russians were shelling all over the region "but they cannot get through our defence".
He said civilians would continue to be evacuated despite the difficult situation.
