KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Evacuations resumed on Saturday from the town in eastern
Ukraine where a
missile strike killed 52 people at a railway station as civilians fled a feared
Russian offensive.
اضافة اعلان
Six weeks into
Russia’s invasion, Moscow shifted its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine
after stiff resistance ended plans to swiftly capture Kyiv.
Civilians trapped
in the region have faced brutal conditions, and EU leaders met with
President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support as news emerged of the devastating
attack on Kramatorsk’s station. The 52 victims included five children.
With thousands
killed in the fighting and more than 11 million fleeing their homes or the
country, Zelensky said the strike marked a fresh atrocity and called for a
“firm global response” to the bloody incident.
“This is another
Russian war crime for which everyone involved will be held accountable,” he
said in a video message.
“World powers have
already condemned Russia’s attack on Kramatorsk. We expect a firm global
response to this war crime.”
Zelensky later said
he remained open to talks with Russia to resolve the conflict.
US President Joe Biden accused Russia of being behind a “horrific atrocity” in the de facto
capital of the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region, and France condemned the
strike as a “crime against humanity”.
Moscow denied
responsibility for the rocket attack on Friday morning, which killed 52 and
injured 109 people, according to the latest official count.
The Ukrainian
president said the bombing had been reported in Russia before the missiles had
even landed and called for more weaponry to counter Moscow’s aggression.
“I am sure that the
victory of Ukraine is just a matter of time, and I will do everything to reduce
this time,” he added.
Minibusses
assembled at a church in Kramatorsk to collect shaken evacuees on Saturday.
Almost 80 people, most of them elderly, took shelter overnight in the building,
not far from the targeted station.
“There were around
300 to 400 people who rushed here after the strike,” Yevgeny, a member of the
Protestant church, told AFP.
The station in
Kramatorsk was being used as the main evacuation hub for refugees from the
parts of the eastern Donbas region still under Ukrainian control.
AFP reporters at
the station saw the remains of the missile tagged in white paint with the words
“for our children” in Russian. The expression is frequently used by pro-Russian
separatists in reference to their losses since the start of the first Donbas
war in 2014.
The governor of
Donetsk claimed a missile with cluster munitions was used in the attack,
according to remarks published by the Interfax news agency.
‘All this horror’
The strike came as
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell were in Kyiv for talks with Zelensky and
to visit the scene of civilian killings in Bucha.
Russia faces
“decay” because of ever tougher sanctions and Ukraine had a “European future”,
von der Leyen said at a news conference with Zelensky.
Joining the Western
solidarity campaign, Austrian Chancellor
Karl Nehammer arrived in Kyiv and was
expected to travel to Bucha later Saturday.
Russian troops
appear to be seeking to create a long-sought land link between occupied Crimea
and the Moscow-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Lugansk in the
Donbas region.
Civilians have been
urged to flee the heavy shelling there that has laid waste to towns and
complicated evacuation efforts.
The defense
ministry in Moscow said Saturday that Russian forces had destroyed an
ammunition depot in the Dnipro region, and struck 85 Ukrainian military targets
in the previous 24 hours.
“There is no secret
— the battle for
Donbas will be decisive. What we have already experienced —
all this horror — it can multiply,” warned Lugansk regional governor Sergiy
Gaiday.
In the south, the
Black Sea port city of Odessa braced for rocket attacks, imposing a weekend
curfew.
Residents and
Ukrainian officials returning after a Russian withdrawal from an area near
Kyiv, meanwhile, were taking stock of the scale of the devastation.
Bucha has become a
byword for the brutality allegedly inflicted under Russian occupation.
But Zelensky warned
worse was being uncovered.
“They have started
sorting through the ruins in Borodianka,” northwest of Kyiv, he said. “It is
much more horrific there. There are even more victims of Russian occupiers.”
Conflict in the
area has wrought massive destruction and bodies are only now being retrieved,
with 27 recovered from two destroyed buildings, according to Prosecutor General
Iryna Venediktova.
Fresh allegations
also emerged from Obukhovychi, northwest of Kyiv, where villagers told AFP they
were used as human shields.
‘Help us now’
Moscow has denied targeting
civilians, but growing evidence of atrocities has galvanized Ukraine’s allies
in the
EU, which has approved an embargo on Russian coal and the closure of its
ports to Russian vessels.
The bloc has frozen 30 billion euros in assets from
blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies, it said Friday.
It also blacklisted Putin’s two adult daughters and
more than 200 others as part of its latest sanctions package, according to an
official list.
The US and Britain had already sanctioned the
Russian leader’s daughters.
Borrell has pledged the EU would supply 7.5 million
euros to train Ukrainian prosecutors to investigate war crimes allegedly
committed by Russia.
Ukraine has welcomed new pressure on Moscow, but it
continues to push for harsher sanctions and more heavy weaponry.
“Either you help us now — and I’m speaking about
days, not weeks — or your help will come too late and many people will die,
many civilians will lose their homes, many villages will be destroyed,” foreign
minister Dmytro Kuleba said after meeting
NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
Britain said Friday it was sending Ukraine more
“high-grade military equipment” including Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and
800 anti-tank missiles, while Slovakia said it had given Ukraine an S-300 air
defence system.
Western companies have joined the bid to isolate
Russia, with US video hosting service YouTube blocking the channel of the
Russian lower house of parliament. Russian officials warned of reprisals.
As sanctions bite, credit rating agency
S and P Global Ratings downgraded Russia’s foreign currency payments rat-ing to
“selective default” after Moscow paid a dollar-denominated debt in rubles this
week.
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