The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is being blocked from bringing aid to Mariupol amid an effort to evacuate civilians from the besieged port city. 

The ICRC said it had a team of three cars and nine staff members headed towards Mariupol from Zaporizhzhia to assist with Friday's safe passage operation. 

"This effort has been and remains extremely complex," it said, adding that it was still not clear if the evacuations would be able to move forward Friday. 

The organization said it did not receive agreement to bring aid into Mariupol with the convoy, despite a growing humanitarian crisis in the city, which has faced heavy shelling for more than a month as residents remain blocked from access to basic essentials, including food and water. 

"We’re running out of adjectives to describe the horrors that residents in Mariupol have suffered. The situation is horrendous and deteriorating, and it’s now a humanitarian imperative that people be allowed to leave, and aid supplies be allowed in," the ICRC said.

A Russian official has blamed a blast at an oil depot in its city of Belgorod on Friday on an airstrike by two Ukrainian helicopters. 

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod close to the Ukrainian border, said a fire at the depot was the result of "an air strike from two helicopters of the armed forces of Ukraine, which entered the territory of Russia at a low altitude."

Nobody was killed or injured in the attack, he added in a statement on his official Telegram channel.  

While footage verified by NBC News showed a large fire and plumes of black smoke at the oil and natural gas fuel depot in Belgorod on Friday, NBC News could not independently verify the claim the Ukrainian armed forces were responsible. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense did not respond to NBC News' request for comment on the allegations.  

The claim, which marks the first time Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of launching an airstrike on Russian soil, follows warnings from Western powers that Moscow may stage "false flag" attacks to justify launching or escalating the conflict. 

Australia's prime minister has said his country will send armored vehicles to Ukraine following a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

"We're not just sending our prayers, we're sending our guns, we're sending our munitions, we're sending our humanitarian aid, we're sending all of this and body armor and all of these things," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a press conference Friday. 

Zelenskyy had specifically made a request for armored vehicles during a video address to Australia's Parliament Thursday. 

Morrison said he could not yet say how many armored vehicles would be sent to Ukraine or share details on when the transfer would be made. He said the details would be confirmed soon.

Russia is continuing to withdraw some of its troops from the northern Kyiv region, the Ukrainian region's military administration has said. 

The administration said in a Telegram post Friday that troops appeared to be "partially" withdrawing in the direction of Ukraine's border with Belarus.

It said the movement of columns of equipment had been noted, with convoys also including "civilian vehicles," that it said had been stolen "during the temporary occupation of the territories." 

NBC News was not able to independently verify the reported movements. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine has said it is "on its way" to start facilitating the safe passage of civilians out of Mariupol, the besieged port city where tens of thousands of people have been trapped in dire humanitarian conditions. 

"We are currently on the move from Zaporizhzhia to go to Mariupol in order to ensure safe passage for the civilians who desperately want to flee the city," an ICRC representative says in a video posted on Twitter Friday. 

It comes after Ukrainian officials said evacuation buses were being blocked from entering Mariupol on Thursday, with aid also said to be blocked from reaching the city this week. 

Mariupol has faced heavy shelling for more than a month now, with residents trapped in the city without access to basic necessities, including food and water.

Five humanitarian corridors are scheduled to open in Luhansk region on Friday, the governor of the region said on Telegram.

Evacuation is organized from six towns and villages, according to Serhiy Haidai, regional governor of Luhansk. 

He said the Ukrainian side was still waiting for a ceasefire from Russians to open the corridors, however. “The shelling on their part continues,” Haidai said.

The governor said that 52 people had already been evacuated from Kreminna and were moving to trains in Slovyansk in the Donetsk region.

A wounded Ukrainian soldier waits for treatment in a room of the military hospital in Zaporizhzhia on Thursday.

Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of blocking aid from reaching the besieged port city of Mariupol, where fresh evacuation efforts are expected to get underway today.

Petro Andryushchenko, aide to the mayor of Mariupol, said Friday morning that Russian forces were blocking the delivery of aid into Mariupol. “The city remains closed to entry and very dangerous to exit with its own transport,” he further warned on Telegram.

Russia had earlier agreed to a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine at the ready to facilitate evacuations.

On Thursday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy of 45 buses had also been blocked by Russian forces. "The occupiers did not allow 45 buses, which we sent for evacuation, to Berdyansk," she said. 

Andryushchenko said officials had yet to see "a real desire of the Russians ... to allow Mariupol residents to evacuate to the territory controlled by Ukraine." 

Ukrainian forces have retaken two villages south of Chernihiv that are located along one of the main supply routes between the northern city and Kyiv, Britain's defense ministry said Friday. 

Both Sloboda and Lukashivka were retaken, it said.

The defense ministry said Ukraine has meanwhile continued to make "successful but limited" counter attacks against Russian forces to the east and north of Kyiv.

Both Chernihiv and Kyiv have been subjected to "continued air and missile strikes," the statement added, despite Russia's claims of reducing activities around both cities.