March 5 (UPI) -- Russia's Defense Ministry announced Saturday it has restarted its offensive operations in certain areas of Ukraine after agreeing to a cease-fire earlier in the morning to allow evacuations.
A Defense Ministry spokesman for Russia accused Ukraine's government in a briefing of failing to restrain "nationalists" to observe the cease-fire.
The International Committee of Red Cross branch in Donetsk told ABC News that evacuations could not take place and its team was forced to take shelter in Mariupol due to shelling.
Ukrainian officials have alleged Russia used the cease-fire period to further encroach.
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Russia and Ukraine had agreed to the temporary cease-fire early Saturday in the port city of Mariupol and the nearby city of Volnovakha to allow evacuation of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid, but officials of both cities said shelling continued.
The Mariupol city council ordered residents to return to city shelters and wait there for further evacuation information.
"We ask all Mariupol residents to disperse and follow to the places of shelter," the city council's statement posted on Telegram said.
In a video posted to Telegram, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschuk accused Russian forces of "shelling Volnovakha with heavy weapons."
"I hereby state that Russia has violated this agreement, failed to fulfill its duty," Vereschuk added.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met virtually with members of the U.S. Congress, asking the country to help enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine and for emergency funding for humanitarian and security needs.
The Ukrainian president urged the U.S. lawmakers to release surplus Warsaw Pact planes from Poland and other countries. He said he needed jets because Ukraine's air force was destroyed on the the first day of the invasion.
Rep. Mike Quigley, the chairman of the Congressional Ukrainian Congress, told CBS News that Zelensky had emphasized the importance of the jets.
"Either close the skies or give us the planes one way or the other because ... the battle is often won in the air," Quigley said in reference to Zelensky's message to Congress.
On Friday night, Zelensky called NATO "weak" after the alliance rejected a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
The United States and Western allies have said they will not create such a zone because it would provoke further war in Europe.
Earlier Friday, Russian forces also took control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine's southeast after a shelling attack -- an act of aggression that U.S. officials say amounts to a war crime.
Russian forces also seized the key port city of Kherson earlier this week where about 2,000 people marched on Saturday against the Russian occupation.
The demonstrators waved flags, sang the Ukrainian anthem and shouted "Russians go home," the BBC reported.
The resistance at this point is "unarmed," Kherson Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev told CNN, since "the army has been defeated."
"We don't have more weapons to resist, to put up an armed resistance," Kolykhaiev added.
Britain's Ministry of Defense said in an update early Saturday that the rate of air and artillery strikes has fallen over the past 24 hours compared to previous days, but Russian forces were still "probably advancing on the southern port city of Mykolaiv," and possibly a crucial port, Odessa.
An advance on Ukraine's capital city of Kyiv slowed last week amid street fighting resistance, but the Ministry of Defense said in another update Saturday it was "highly likely" that Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, along with Sumy and Chernihiv and Mariupol, were encircled by Russian forces.
Since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, more than 1.36 million Ukrainians have fled the country, including more than 756,000 settling in Poland, more than 157,000 in Hungary, and more than 133,000 settling in other European countries, according to United Nations data.
