Ukrainian servicemen stand next to a fragment of a Tochka-U missile with a writing in Russian "For children" , on a grass after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, April 8, 2022. (AP)Russia Ukraine War Crisis Live: A missile hit a train station in eastern Ukraine where thousands had gathered Friday, killing at least 52 and wounding dozens more in an attack on a crowd of mostly women and children trying to flee a new, looming Russian offensive, Ukrainian authorities said. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor of Donetsk, in the Donbas, said five children were among those killed.
Photos from the station in Kramatorsk showed the dead covered with tarps, and the remnants of a rocket with the words “For the children” painted on it in Russian. About 4,000 civilians had been in and around the station, heeding calls to leave before fighting intensifies in the Donbas region, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said.
Meanwhile, Biden Administration’s key architect for Russian sanctions Indian American Daleep Singh had not issued any warning to India on oil imports from Russia during his recent trip to New Delhi and had a rather constructive dialogue, the White House said Friday. The White House made the assertion while also noting that India imports more energy from the United States than Russia.
Burned column of military vehicles are seen on a highway, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 5, 2022. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants a tough global response to Russia after its forces fired a missile at a crowded train station, killing at least 52 people.
Zelenskyy's voice rose in anger during his nightly address late Friday, when he said the strike on the Kramatorsk train station, where 4,000 people were trying to flee a looming Russian offensive in the east, amounted to another war crime.
Russia denied it was responsible for the strike. Among those killed were children, and dozens of people were severely injured. (AP)
More evacuations are needed from the Luhansk region in Ukraine as shelling has increased in recent days and more Russian forces have been arriving, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Saturday.
He said that some 30% of people still remain in settlements across the region and have been asked to evacuate.
"They (Russia) are amassing forces for an offensive and we see the number of shelling has increased," Gaidai told the public television broadcaster. (Reuters)
Ten humanitarian corridors agreed for Saturday in Ukraine, including from Mariupol by private transport, said Ukraine's deputy PM. (Reuters)
Russia continues to hit Ukrainian non-combatants, such as the civilians killed in Friday's rocket strike on Kramatorsk railway station in eastern Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Saturday.
"Russian operations continue to focus on the Donbas region, Mariupol and Mykolaiv, supported by continued cruise missile launches into Ukraine by Russian naval forces," the Ministry of Defence said, adding that Russia's ambitions to establish a land corridor between Crimea and the Donbas continue to be thwarted by Ukrainian resistance. (Reuters)
In Bucha, Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk has said investigators found at least three sites of mass shootings of civilians and were still finding bodies in yards, parks and city squares — 90% of whom were shot. Russia has falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged.
On Friday, workers pulled corpses from a mass grave near a church under spitting rain, lining up black body bags in rows in the mud. About 67 people were buried in the grave, according to a statement from Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova's office.
Actor Priyanka Chopra has made an appeal to world leaders to come out in support of the refugees of Ukraine. In an Instagram post, she said that the current refugee crisis is the “largest we have seen as human beings”.
In the video, Priyanka, who is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, said, “World leaders, this is a direct appeal to you. We need you to answer the call from activists and advocates working to support the humanitarian and refugee crisis that we are watching every day in Eastern Europe. We need you to take action to help the displaced people from Ukraine, and all around the world.”
A senior US defense official says the Pentagon has determined that some of the Russian combat units that retreated from the Kyiv area in recent days are so heavily damaged and depleted that their combat utility is in question.
The official described these units as "for all intents and purposes eradicated," with only a small number of functioning troops and weapons remaining. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal US military assessments, did not say how many units sustained such extensive damage.
The official says that the US believes Russia has lost 15 to 20 per cent of the combat power it had assembled along Ukraine's borders before launching its invasion February 24. (AP)
The United States Friday broadened its export curbs against Russia and Belarus, restricting access to imports of items such as fertiliser and pipe valves as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and Minsk following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden's administration also restricted flights of American-made aircraft that are owned, controlled or leased by Belarusians from flying into Belarus "as part of the US government's response to Belarus's actions in support of Russia's aggressive conduct in Ukraine. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden and South African President Ramaphosa in a phone call Friday discussed the impact of the Ukraine crisis on commodity prices, supply chains and food security in Africa, the White House said in a statement. (Reuters)
Global food prices have surged to a new all-time high.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index averaged 159.3 points in March, up from the previous month’s 141.4 points, which had itself broken an earlier record of 137.6 points scaled 11 years ago in February 2011.
The release Friday of the benchmark gauge for international food prices came on the day the Reserve Bank of India kept its key policy interest rates unchanged. This, even as its monetary policy committee warned about “elevated global price pressures in key food items” imparting “high uncertainty” to the inflation outlook and “warranting continuous monitoring”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Kyiv Friday presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with paperwork for his country to join the European Union.
Handing over a document at a joint press conference, she said: "This is where your path towards the European Union begins."
"We stand ready to support you in filling out this questionnaire," von der Leyen said, adding: "It will not be, as usual, a matter of years, but rather a matter of weeks" to complete this step.
The questionnaire, she explained, forms the basis of an opinion that gets passed on to the European Council. Von der Leyen said she intended to, "present Ukraine's application to the [European] Council this summer."
➡️ Ukraine demands more weapons and tougher sanctions on Russia following Kramatorsk train station strike.
➡️ The United States restricted Russia and Belarus' access to imports of fertilizers and pipe valves, among other goods.
➡️ The death toll in the missile strike at a train station in eastern Ukraine rose to at least 52 people. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 300 people had been wounded.
➡️ A total of 6,665 people were evacuated from cities across Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post.
➡️ At least 67 people were buried in a mass grave on the grounds of a church in the town of Bucha outside Kyiv, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said.
➡️ Rights organizations criticised Russia's decision to close the offices of 15 international NGOs that were still operating in the country. The organisations included Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
➡️ Food prices around the world reached an all-time high last month due to fallout from Russia's invasion in Ukraine, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said on Friday.
➡️ The mayor of Makariv, a village west of Kyiv, said 132 civilians were found shot to death.
➡️ Speaking following talks in Kyiv, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Ukraine a first step towards advancing its membership bid in the European Union. (Deutsche Welle)
The European Union nations have agreed to ban Russian coal in the first sanctions on the vital energy industry over the war in Ukraine, but it has underlined the 27 countries’ inability to agree so far on a much more sweeping embargo on oil and natural gas that would hit Russia harder but risk recession at home.
The coal ban should cost Russia 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) a year, the EU’s executive commission said. Energy analysts and coal importers say Europe could replace Russian supply in a few months from other countries, including the US.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor of Donetsk, in the Donbas, said 52 people were killed, including five children, and many dozens more were wounded after a missile hit a train station in eastern Ukraine.
Photos from the station in Kramatorsk showed the dead covered with tarps, and the remnants of a rocket with the words "For the children" painted on it in Russian. About 4,000 civilians had been in and around the station, heeding calls to leave before fighting intensifies in the Donbas region, the office of Ukraine's prosecutor-general said. (AP)
A day after Russia's suspension from the UN Human Rights Council amid its invasion of Ukraine, the White House on Friday said it does not anticipate the same for Moscow in the Security Council where it is a veto-wielding Permanent Member.
"I know a question has been asked about whether Russia should be kicked out of being a permanent member. We don't anticipate that happening," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news briefing.
"But obviously, the step taken yesterday to suspend Russia from the UNHRC is an indication of the global response and horror at the atrocities we have seen happen on the ground in Ukraine. But beyond that, I don't have any other predictions of reforms," she said. A day earlier, Russia was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council. (PTI)
The United States would prefer India to move away from its "long-term history of non-alignment G77 partnership with Russia", the Biden Administration has told lawmakers, observing that there is a great opportunity for defence trade with India.
America's relationship with India is a very critical one, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a Congressional hearing early this week.
The United States, she said, has told Indians that it will be very hard for them now to get spare parts or to get them replaced from Russia because of the sanctions. (PTI)
The death toll in the Russian rocket strike on a train station in east Ukraine rose to 50 on Friday, news agency AFP reported. Among the total number of casualties reported so far, five were children. The station was hit when civilians tried to evacuate to safer parts of the country, the state railway company said.
Ukraine's Odessa imposes weekend curfew over 'missile strike threat', AFP reports quoting authorities
An international organization formed to identify the dead and missing from the 1990s Balkan conflicts is preparing to send a team of forensics experts to Ukraine as the death toll mounts more than six weeks into the war caused by Russia's invasion. Authorities in Kyiv have reached out to the International Commission on Missing Persons to help put names to bodies that might otherwise remain anonymous amid the fog of war. --AP
Turkish official says Russia and Ukraine are 'willing to hold talks in Turkey' despite Bucha images, AFP reports.