- Ukraine is looking for more weapons and tougher sanctions against Russia
- The United States, the European Union and Britain have condemned the attack on the train station
- The West is imposing more trade restrictions on Russia
LVIV, Ukraine, April 9 (Reuters) – The British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that Russian forces were targeting civilians, a day after a rocket attack on a station crowded with women, children and the elderly killed at least 52 people. Ukrainian officials.
Russia is focusing its offensive, which included cruise missiles fired by its navy, on the eastern region of Donbass, the British ministry said in a daily briefing.
He said he expects airstrikes to intensify south and east as Russia seeks to establish a land bridge between Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and Donbas, but Ukrainian forces are thwarting the offensive.
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Ukrainian officials say shelling in the region has increased in recent days as more Russian forces arrive.
“The occupiers continue to prepare for the offensive in the eastern part of our country in order to establish full control over the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Zelensky called the strike at the Kramatorsk railway station in the eastern part of Donetsk a deliberate attack on civilians. The mayor estimated that 4,000 people had gathered there at the time.
District Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said the station had been hit by a short-range ballistic missile, Point U, containing cluster munitions that exploded in the air, dropping bombs over a wider area. Read more
Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.
Cluster munitions are banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it, but has previously denied using such weapons in Ukraine. Read more
The United States, the European Union and Britain have condemned the incident on the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv to show solidarity and speed up Ukraine’s membership process.
“We expect a firm global response to this war crime,” Zelenski said in a video released late Friday.
“Any delay in providing … weapons to Ukraine, any refusals can only mean that the politicians in question want to help the Russian leadership more than us,” he said, calling for an energy embargo and all Russian banks to be cut off from the global system.
Russia’s more than six-week invasion has led to more than 4 million people fleeing abroad, killing or injuring thousands, leaving a quarter of the population homeless and turning cities into ruins as it drags on for longer than Russia. he expected.
In Washington, a senior defense official said the United States “does not accept the Russians’ denial that they are not responsible,” and said Russian forces had fired a short-range ballistic missile in an attack on the station. Read more
Russia’s Defense Ministry was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency that the missiles allegedly hitting the station were used only by the Ukrainian military and that the Russian armed forces had no targets in Kramatorsk on Friday.
Russia denies targeting civilians after President Vladimir Putin ordered the February 24 invasion of what he called a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denationalize” Russia’s southern neighbor.
Ukraine and its Western supporters call this a pretext for an unprovoked invasion.
The Kremlin said on Friday that the “special operation” could end in the “foreseeable future” and that its goals would be achieved through the work of Russian military and peace negotiators.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that the war could last months or even years. Read more
The White House said it would support attempts to investigate the Kramatorsk attack, which British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said showed “the depths to which Putin’s vaunted army has sunk”.
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Following Russia’s partial withdrawal near Kyiv, a forensic team began exhuming a mass grave in the city of Bucha on Friday. Authorities say hundreds of civilians have been found dead there.
Russia called the allegations that its forces executed civilians in Bucha a “monstrous forgery” aimed at denigrating its army and justifying new sanctions.
Visiting the city on Friday, von der Leyen said he had witnessed the “unthinkable”.
She later handed the Green Questionnaire, which forms the starting point for the EU to decide on membership, telling him: “It will not be a matter of years to form this opinion, but I think it is a matter of weeks.” Read more
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nechamer is due to visit Zelensky on Saturday.
The bloc has also overcome some divisions to adopt new sanctions, including bans on imports of coal, wood, chemicals and other products, along with the freezing of EU assets belonging to Putin’s daughters and other oligarchs.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the possibility of banning oil would be discussed on Monday, but called oil sanctions a “big elephant in the room” for a continent heavily dependent on Russian energy.
Ten humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of people from the besieged regions have been agreed for Saturday, said Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk.
The planned corridors include one for people evacuating by private transport from the devastated southeastern city of Mariupol.
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Additional reports by James Mackenzie in Yahidne, Ukraine, and Reuters offices; Screenplay by Costas Pitas, Michael Perry; Edited by Daniel Wallis, Robert Birsel
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