LVIV, UK: Britain’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces were targeting civilians, a day after they were killed. missile attack According to Ukrainian officials, a mob of women, children and the elderly killed at least 52 people at a railway station.
The British ministry said in a daily briefing that Russia was focusing on its offensive, which included cruise missiles launched by its naval forces in the eastern Donbass region.
It said it expected airstrikes to the south and east as Russia seeks to establish a land bridge between Crimea, which Moscow captured in 2014, and the Donbass but Ukrainian forces were thwarting the advance.
Ukrainian officials said the shelling had increased in recent days as more Russian troops arrived in the area.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said, “The occupiers continue to prepare an offensive in the east of our country in order to establish complete control over the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky The strike at the railway station in Kramatorsk, in the eastern region of Donetsk, is said to be a deliberate attack on civilians. The city’s mayor estimates that 4,000 people gathered there at the time.
Regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile, which had cluster munitions, which burst into the air, bombarding a wide area.
Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.
Cluster weapons have been banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it, but has previously denied the use of such weapons in Ukraine.
The United States, the European Union and Britain condemned the incident that occurred on the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv to show solidarity and accelerate Ukraine’s membership process.
“We expect a strong global response to this war crime,” Zelensky said in a video posted late Friday.
“Any delay, any refusal to provide arms to Ukraine, can only mean that the politicians in question want to help the Russian leadership more than us,” he said, adding that he has called for energy embargoes and all-Russian banks. Called to separate from it. global system.
Russia’s more than six-week-long incursion has fled abroad, killing or injuring thousands more, leaving a quarter of the population homeless and turning cities into rubble as it lasted longer than Russia expected. Stayed.
In Washington, a senior defense official said the United States was “not denied by the Russians that they were not responsible”, and that the Russian military was believed to have fired a short-range ballistic missile. railway station attack,
The Russian Defense Ministry quoted the RIA news agency as saying that missiles that struck the station were only used by Ukraine’s military and that Russia’s armed forces had no targets in Kramatorsk on Friday.
Russia has denied targeting civilians since President Vladimir Putin ordered an offensive on February 24, which he called a “special military operation” on Russia’s southern neighbour.
Ukraine and its Western supporters see it as an excuse for an unprovoked attack.
The Kremlin said on Friday that a “special operation” could end in the “near future”, aimed at being achieved through work by the Russian military and peace negotiators.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that the war could go on for months or even years.
The White House said it would support efforts to investigate the attack in Kramatorsk, which Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said was “deeply sank” by Putin’s reprehensible army.
forensic investigation
Following Russia’s partial withdrawal near Kyiv, a forensic team began digging a mass grave in the city of Buka on Friday. Officials say hundreds of dead civilians have been found there.
Russia has accused its military of committing civilians in Bucha as a “monstrous forgery”, intended to discredit its military and justify more sanctions.
Visiting the city on Friday, von der Leyen said it had seen “the unimaginable”.
He later handed over a questionnaire to Zelensky, which became a starting point for decisions on membership for the European Union, and told him: “It will not be a matter of years, as usual, to form this opinion, but I think It’s a matter of a few weeks.”
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer is due to travel on Saturday for talks with Zelensky.
The bloc also overcame some divisions to adopt new sanctions, including freezing EU assets belonging to Putin’s daughters and more oligarchs, as well as banning imports of coal, timber, chemicals and other products. Is.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the possibility of an oil embargo would be discussed on Monday, but called oil sanctions “a big elephant in the room” for the continent heavily dependent on Russian energy.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on Saturday that ten humanitarian corridors had been agreed to help evacuate people from the besieged areas.
One of the planned corridors is for people evacuated by private transport from the devastated southeastern city of Mariupol.
The British ministry said in a daily briefing that Russia was focusing on its offensive, which included cruise missiles launched by its naval forces in the eastern Donbass region.
It said it expected airstrikes to the south and east as Russia seeks to establish a land bridge between Crimea, which Moscow captured in 2014, and the Donbass but Ukrainian forces were thwarting the advance.
Ukrainian officials said the shelling had increased in recent days as more Russian troops arrived in the area.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said, “The occupiers continue to prepare an offensive in the east of our country in order to establish complete control over the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky The strike at the railway station in Kramatorsk, in the eastern region of Donetsk, is said to be a deliberate attack on civilians. The city’s mayor estimates that 4,000 people gathered there at the time.
Regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile, which had cluster munitions, which burst into the air, bombarding a wide area.
Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.
Cluster weapons have been banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it, but has previously denied the use of such weapons in Ukraine.
The United States, the European Union and Britain condemned the incident that occurred on the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv to show solidarity and accelerate Ukraine’s membership process.
“We expect a strong global response to this war crime,” Zelensky said in a video posted late Friday.
“Any delay, any refusal to provide arms to Ukraine, can only mean that the politicians in question want to help the Russian leadership more than us,” he said, adding that he has called for energy embargoes and all-Russian banks. Called to separate from it. global system.
Russia’s more than six-week-long incursion has fled abroad, killing or injuring thousands more, leaving a quarter of the population homeless and turning cities into rubble as it lasted longer than Russia expected. Stayed.
In Washington, a senior defense official said the United States was “not denied by the Russians that they were not responsible”, and that the Russian military was believed to have fired a short-range ballistic missile. railway station attack,
The Russian Defense Ministry quoted the RIA news agency as saying that missiles that struck the station were only used by Ukraine’s military and that Russia’s armed forces had no targets in Kramatorsk on Friday.
Russia has denied targeting civilians since President Vladimir Putin ordered an offensive on February 24, which he called a “special military operation” on Russia’s southern neighbour.
Ukraine and its Western supporters see it as an excuse for an unprovoked attack.
The Kremlin said on Friday that a “special operation” could end in the “near future”, aimed at being achieved through work by the Russian military and peace negotiators.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that the war could go on for months or even years.
The White House said it would support efforts to investigate the attack in Kramatorsk, which Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said was “deeply sank” by Putin’s reprehensible army.
forensic investigation
Following Russia’s partial withdrawal near Kyiv, a forensic team began digging a mass grave in the city of Buka on Friday. Officials say hundreds of dead civilians have been found there.
Russia has accused its military of committing civilians in Bucha as a “monstrous forgery”, intended to discredit its military and justify more sanctions.
Visiting the city on Friday, von der Leyen said it had seen “the unimaginable”.
He later handed over a questionnaire to Zelensky, which became a starting point for decisions on membership for the European Union, and told him: “It will not be a matter of years, as usual, to form this opinion, but I think It’s a matter of a few weeks.”
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer is due to travel on Saturday for talks with Zelensky.
The bloc also overcame some divisions to adopt new sanctions, including freezing EU assets belonging to Putin’s daughters and more oligarchs, as well as banning imports of coal, timber, chemicals and other products. Is.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the possibility of an oil embargo would be discussed on Monday, but called oil sanctions “a big elephant in the room” for the continent heavily dependent on Russian energy.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on Saturday that ten humanitarian corridors had been agreed to help evacuate people from the besieged areas.
One of the planned corridors is for people evacuated by private transport from the devastated southeastern city of Mariupol.