MOSCOW. Aug 29 (Interfax) - The Novorossiya militia should heed calls from the Russia president and open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukrainian troops as this will save hundreds of lives and may ease the conflict, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs, Eurasian integration and liaison with Russians living abroad, said.
"They [the encircled Ukrainian troops] were made to fight. They didn't burn people alive in Odesa and most of them would leave the army, as hundreds of their fellow servicemen who did not want to kill people who are defending their ideas and the possibility of living in a free, democratic country and speaking their native language, have done," Slutsky told Interfax on Friday.
Slutsky said killing these people who are surrounded means increasing the conflict. "That is, playing into the hands of the West, who will speak about 'the militia's aggression,'" Slutsky said.
All these things will increase tensions and cause more casualties, he said.
"I regard Vladimir Putin's call as a proposal made by a humane politician, which again confirms that Russia is not interested in fuelling the tensions in eastern Ukraine and wants the conflict to be settled in a peaceful, diplomatic way, not through weapons and deaths of people, including civilians," he said.
Putin has recently called on the militia of Novorossiya to open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian troops who are encircled, the Kremlin press service reported in the early hours of Friday.
"I call on militia forces to open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian servicemen who have found themselves surrounded in order to prevent any meaningless loss of life, to give them a chance to leave areas of fighting unhindered, rejoin their families, return to their mothers, wives and children and to extend urgent medical care to soldiers injured as a result of the army operation," the Russian leader said in an overnight message.
"It is obvious that the militia has achieved serious successes in suppressing Kyiv's army operation, which is posing a deadly threat to the population of Donbas and has already resulted in an enormous death toll among civilians. As a result of the militia's activities, a large number of Ukrainian servicemen, who are not participating in this army operation by their own free will, but are simply obeying orders, have found themselves encircled," he said.