In the aftermath of the attack in Kramatorsk, several European leaders made efforts to show solidarity with Ukraine, with the Austrian Chancellor and the British Prime Minister visiting Kyiv – the capital that Russia failed to occupy and where troops had retreated for days. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where Johnson’s office said they discussed “long-term support” for Britain. Ukrainian authorities have called on civilians to come out in the face of an impending, intensified attack by Russian forces in the east. With trains not running out of Kramatorsk on Saturday, panicked residents boarded buses or looked for other ways to escape, fearing the kind of relentless attacks and squatting by Russian invaders that caused food shortages and demolition in other parts of the country. of Ukraine. “It was scary. “Horror, horror,” a resident told Britain’s Sky television network, recalling Friday’s attack. “Paradise, to live it again. No, I do not want to”. The Ukrainian state railway company said in a statement that residents of Kramatorsk and other areas of the disputed Donbas region of the country could leave other railway stations. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 10 evacuation corridors were scheduled for Saturday. More than six weeks after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, it has withdrawn its troops from the north of the country, around Kyiv, and refocused on the Donbas region in the east. Western military analysts say an arc of land in eastern Ukraine was under Russian control, from Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city – in the north to Kherson in the south. However, Ukrainian counterattacks threaten Russian control of the Kherson, according to Western estimates, and Ukrainian forces repel Russian attacks in other parts of the Donbas region in the southeast. Zelensky described the attack on the train station as the latest example of war crimes by Russian forces and said he should urge the West to do more to help his country defend itself. “All the efforts of the people will be directed to find out every minute who did what, who gave what orders, where the rocket came from, who carried it, who gave the order and how this strike was agreed,” Zelensky said at night. video talk. , his voice rose in anger. Russia has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Russia’s intelligence have been made more than once. A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry detailed the rocket’s orbit and the positions of Ukrainian troops to reinforce the argument. Western experts and the Ukrainian authorities insisted that Russia fired the weapon. The remains of the rocket had the words “For the children” painted in Russian. The phrase seemed to indicate that the rocket was sent to avenge the loss or submission of the children, although its exact meaning remained unclear. Western experts have rejected Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov claiming that Russian forces “do not use” Tochka-U missiles that hit the Kramatorsk railway station, which is located in Ukrainian-controlled territory in Don. The attack took place as Ukrainian authorities worked to locate the victims and document possible war crimes by Russian soldiers in northern Ukraine. The mayor of Bucha, a city near Kyiv where graphic evidence of civilian killings has surfaced since the Russians withdrew, said search teams were still finding the bodies of people shot close to yards, parks and town squares. On Friday, workers discovered the bodies of 67 people from a mass grave near a church, according to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Russia falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged. Ukrainian authorities and Western officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of committing atrocities in the war that began with Russia’s invasion on February 24. A total of 176 children have been killed and another 324 injured, the country’s Attorney General’s Office announced on Saturday. In an excerpt from a 60-minute interview on CBS television on Friday, Zelensky cited communications intercepted by Ukraine’s security service as evidence of Russian war crimes. The authenticity of the recordings could not be independently verified. “There are (Russian) soldiers talking to their parents about what they stole and who they kidnapped. “There are recordings of (Russian) prisoners of war who admitted to killing people,” he said. “There are pilots in the prison who had maps with political targets to bomb. “Searches are also being made based on the remains of the dead.” Ukrainian authorities have warned that they expect to find more mass killings as soon as they reach the southern port city of Mariupol, which is also in Donbass and has been under siege and heavy fighting for a month. As journalists who were largely absent from the city began to return, new images emerged from last week’s disaster by an airstrike on a theater that reportedly killed hundreds of civilians seeking refuge. Military analysts had predicted for weeks that Russia would capture Mariupol, but said Ukrainian defenders were still fighting. The location of the city in the Sea of Azov is crucial for the construction of a land bridge from the Crimean peninsula, which Russia occupied from Ukraine eight years ago. Many civilians now trying to evacuate are accustomed to living in or near a war zone because Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 in Donbas. The same week that Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the independence of the separatist-held territories and said he planned to send troops to protect residents of the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial area. Ukrainian officials have been urging Western powers almost daily to send more weapons and further punish Russia with sanctions, including the exclusion of Russian banks from the global financial system and a full European Union embargo on Russian gas and natural gas. The deaths of civilians at the train station have brought new expressions of anger from Western leaders and pledges that Russia will retaliate further for its actions in Ukraine. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry tried to confront the dominant international narrative by once again raising the ghost of Ukraine to plant false flags and misinformation. A spokesman for the ministry, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, claimed that Ukraine’s security services were preparing a “cynical organized” media operation in Irpin, another city near Kyiv. Konashenkov said the plan was to show – falsely, he said – more civilian casualties at the hands of the Russians and to organize the assassination of a fake Russian intelligence group that intended to kill witnesses. The claims could not be independently verified. Austrian Chancellor Carl Nehammer said during a visit to Kyiv on Saturday that he expected more EU sanctions against Russia, but defended his country’s opposition so far to a halt to Russian gas supplies. A package of sanctions imposed this week “will not be the last”, the chancellor said, acknowledging that “as long as people die, any sanctions are still insufficient”. Austria is militarily neutral and is not a member of NATO. Johnson’s visit, which had not been announced in advance, came a day after the United Kingdom pledged an additional 100 100 million ($ 130 million) in high-quality military equipment to Ukraine.
Anna reported from Bukha, Ukraine. Robert Burns in Washington, Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka in London, and Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
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