Today at 12:20 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 6:25 a.m. EDT
Today at 12:20 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 6:25 a.m. EDT
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — More than 30 people were killed and over 100 injured Friday at the Kramatorsk train station in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, in what they said was a Russian missile attack while thousands of evacuees were waiting to escape an expected Russian onslaught in the region. Washington Post reporters who arrived at the station after the attack counted at least 20 dead amid the destruction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “cynically destroying the civilian population” amid battlefield losses. The Russian Defense Ministry denied any involvement in the strike, calling the accusations a “provocation” and insinuating that Kyiv was responsible.
The deadly strike came as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She made the trip a day after the European Union approved a plan to phase out Russian coal by mid-August, a move spurred by global outrage after the brutal slaying of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
A British intelligence assessment Friday said Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from northern Ukraine into Russia and Belarus. Ukrainian officials say hundreds of corpses have been discovered in newly liberated areas of the Kyiv region — and Zelensky warned in his nightly address Thursday to expect “much worse” death and destruction in the Kyiv suburb of Borodyanka and the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
Here’s what to know
- In a rare admission, the Kremlin’s spokesman acknowledged that Russia has suffered “significant losses of troops” in Ukraine.
- The Pentagon said it was providing Kyiv with intelligence to combat the Kremlin in the east, where Ukrainian officials say Russian forces are deploying “scorched earth” tactics.
- Congress sent two bills aimed at punishing Russia and aiding Ukraine to President Biden for his signature, ending a lengthy impasse over how to respond to Russia’s invasion.
- The World Health Organization said it has recorded more than 100 attacks on health-care facilities and transportation since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
- The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
Airstrike on Kramatorsk rail station kills at least 30, officials say
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — More than 30 people were killed and over 100 injured Friday at the Kramatorsk train station in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, in what they said was a Russian missile attack while hundreds of evacuees were waiting to escape a looming Russian offensive in the area.
Washington Post reporters who arrived at the station in the eastern Donetsk region after the attack counted at least 20 dead amid the destruction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Telegram post that police and rescuers were at the scene and that at least 30 people were killed and that 100 were injured “to varying degrees.”
“Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits,” he said, blaming Russia for the attack.
I strongly condemn this morning’s indiscriminate attack against a train station in #Kramatorsk by Russia, which killed dozens of people and left many more wounded. This is yet another attempt to close escape routes for those fleeing this unjustified war and cause human suffering
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) April 8, 2022
Russia has yet to publicly comment. However, Eduard Basurin, a pro-Russian separatist commander in the Donetsk region, accused the Ukrainian military of organizing a “provocation” at the railway station in Kramatorsk and of being responsible for the incident, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The chairman of the Ukrainian Railways operator, Alexander Kamyshin, wrote on Telegram that more than 30 people were killed in what he said was a deliberate strike on passenger infrastructure. The railway operator added that two missiles struck the station and that details were still being clarified. The Kramatorsk police said the station was struck by Russian ballistic missiles.
The head of the Donetsk regional administration wrote on Telegram that thousands of people were at the railway station trying to flee the area while it was still relatively safe to do so, as Russian troops reposition away from the north and focus on the east and south of Ukraine.
Japan ramps up sanctions on Russia, expels diplomats
TOKYO — Japan will expel eight Russian diplomats and issue a new round of sanctions on Moscow, while taking steps to decrease its energy dependence on Russia, Japanese officials said Friday.
Japan is set to ban coal imports and other products from Russia, and expand its ban on Russian investments and assets, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a news conference.
Japan has also announced that it would release 15 million barrels of oil reserves as a member state of the International Energy Agency to stabilize the energy market in the wake of Russian invasion.
The efforts are part of Japan’s continued ramp-up of pressure on Moscow. Kishida noted on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had thanked Japan in his speech to the Japanese parliament and requested further sanctions.
The historically refugee-averse country has so far accepted at least 400 evacuees from Ukraine. On Friday, Kishida announced that there would be seats reserved weekly on direct flights from Poland to Japan, to accommodate more evacuees. The first of those flights has already taken off from Poland, he said.
Japan’s decision to remove Russian diplomats and trade officials is unusual but not the first time, as the country had previously removed diplomats during the Soviet era, Reuters reported. Japan also removed Syrian diplomats in 2012.
European Commission president heads to Kyiv on Friday
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to visit Kyiv on Friday, where she will hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Von der Leyen tweeted an image of herself stepping off a train en route, and wrote that she was “looking forward to Kyiv.” The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, is also on the trip.
Last month, the leaders of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic made a bold visit to Ukraine’s capital while it was under attack, to pledge “unequivocal support” to Ukraine, they said.
The prime minister of Slovakia, Eduard Heger, will also join Friday’s trip. He tweeted that the group planned to discuss issues including wheat and other key exports from Ukraine, and the use of neighboring Slovakia as a humanitarian hub.
Russia says it would ‘rebalance’ situation if Sweden, Finland join NATO
If Sweden and Finland were to join NATO, Russia would be forced to “rebalance the situation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday in an interview with Sky News.
The two Nordic countries are historically nonaligned and have maintained a delicate balance of relations with the West and Russia. But top officials in both countries have signaled that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could mean a change in footing.
The foreign minister of Finland, which shares a land border of more than 800 miles with Russia, said this week that the country would clarify with NATO within weeks what steps Helsinki would need to take to enter the alliance.
If Sweden and Finland were to gain membership, “we’ll have to make our western flank more sophisticated in terms of ensuring our security,” Peskov said.
Moscow has often cited countering the expansion of NATO and Ukraine’s desire to join the 30-member military alliance as key reasons for the ongoing invasion.
“We are deeply convinced that NATO is a machine for confrontation, it’s not a peaceful alliance,” Peskov said. “It was tailored for confrontation and the main purpose of its existence is to confront our country and this is a very unfortunate situation.”
A key tenet of the NATO alliance is Article 5 — an agreement that an armed attack on one member will be viewed as an attack on all, with an obligation to mutual defense.
U.S. targets Putin family members with sanctions. Here’s what to know.
A new tranche of U.S. sanctions seeking to punish Russia for atrocities in the Kyiv region took aim this week at some unexpected targets: the adult daughters of the Russian president and family members of other officials.
The measures announced Wednesday included sanctions against Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, also known as Mariya Putina, both of whom are widely considered to be Vladimir Putin’s daughters from his first marriage. They also targeted Maria Lavrova, the wife of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and their adult child, Ekaterina Lavrova.
For Western policymakers, imposing sanctions on the family members of prominent figures can ramp up pressure on targeted individuals or allow for the seizure of assets listed under a relative’s name.
“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them,” a senior U.S. administration official said Wednesday.
Russia says Ukraine’s new peace proposal is ‘unacceptable’
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that a draft peace agreement presented by Ukraine was an “unacceptable” departure from what had been discussed during talks last week — comments that a Ukrainian official dismissed as “propaganda” and a distraction from potential war crimes in the suburbs of Kyiv.
In a statement, Lavrov said the proposal offered Wednesday by Ukrainian negotiators diverged from the “most important provisions” of an agreement presented by Ukraine in Istanbul on March 29. Missing from the new proposal was a “clear statement” that future NATO-style security guarantees would not apply to Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Moreover, Lavrov claimed the new agreement proposes that prospects for Crimea and the eastern region of Donbas should be discussed in a future meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents. The proposal would also allow for foreign military exercises to be held in Ukraine without Russia’s consent, Lavrov said.
“For sure, at the next round, the Ukrainian side will ask for the withdrawal of troops and will add more preconditions,” Lavrov said. “This intention is clear; this is unacceptable.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian negotiator and presidential adviser, told Reuters that Lavrov’s comments were meant to distract attention from the war crimes Russia has been accused of committing in Bucha.
“To make any changes to our position to weaken it would be pointless,” he said. “Mr. Lavrov is not directly related to the negotiation process, and so his statements are pure propaganda.”
Expulsion of Russian ‘diplomats’ may strangle Moscow’s spying
In the international game of spy vs. spy, Europe has dealt Russia a potentially crippling blow.
Nearly two dozen European countries have expelled hundreds of Russian government personnel from embassies and consulates since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and more recently was accused of war crimes against civilians. A significant number are probably spies posing as diplomats, according to U.S. and European officials.
Russia depends on those operatives to gather intelligence inside the countries where they serve, so the expulsions could dismantle large parts of Moscow’s spy networks and lead to a dramatic reduction in espionage and disinformation operations against the West, current and former officials said.
Fox News’s Benjamin Hall details injuries, says he feels lucky to be alive
Fox News journalist Benjamin Hall, who was injured while reporting near Kyiv last month when his vehicle was hit by incoming fire, said Thursday he was recovering after losing “half a leg” and a foot.
He cannot see out of one eye and “my hearing is pretty blown,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that he still felt lucky to be alive. The post was the first time his injuries were publicly detailed.
Hall also paid tribute to two of his colleagues who were killed while reporting alongside him. Pierre Zakrzewski, a cameraman for Fox News, and Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a Ukrainian colleague, didn’t survive the attack.
Hall is a State Department correspondent for Fox News and has three daughters. He is now in a military medical facility in Texas.
Human rights vote at U.N. highlights stark divisions over Russia
The U.N. General Assembly’s Thursday vote suspending Russia from the body’s Human Rights Council drew a newly clear delineation of the global order in ways that seemed to go far beyond allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
On one side, 95 nations — just slightly more than half the U.N. membership, but enough to reach the necessary two-thirds of those casting a vote — supported the resolution backed by the United States and dozens of others. The total included members of NATO and the European Union, some small Pacific island nations and much of Latin America.
With their votes, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “the international community took one collective step in the right direction.” Calling the vote an “important and historic moment” she said it “sent a strong message that the suffering of victims and survivors will not be ignored.”
More than 4,600 evacuated via humanitarian corridors, Ukraine says
More than 4,600 people were evacuated Thursday from Ukraine’s embattled cities, with about two-thirds of them departing from the southern part of the country via humanitarian corridors, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on social media. Roughly 1,200 of them are from Mariupol, the devastated port city that has endured weeks of Russian attacks.
About 1,400 people left towns in eastern Ukraine, she added. Ukrainian and Western officials have said Russia is shifting the focus of its invasion to that region.
More than 4 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, while more than 7 million are internally displaced, according to the United Nations.
Ukraine’s wheat harvest, which feeds the world, can’t leave the country
PERVOMAISK, Ukraine — The grain Ukraine produces is found everywhere. Much of the bread in the Middle East is made from it. Much of what aid organizations distribute to stave off famine in Yemen is made from it. Much of what feeds Chinese livestock that in turn feeds people worldwide is made from it.
Even with a calamitous war about to enter its seventh week, Ukraine is on track to harvest most of its vast grain fields this summer — though there are mounting concerns that war-related supply shortages may reduce output by as much as a third. The country has 30 million tons of wheat in storage, too.
“Ukraine is actually full of grain. Our stocks are full,” said Dmytro Grushetskyi, an industrial farmer with nearly 30,000 acres of cropland near the central city of Uman.
“But now we can’t get the grain out,” he said, putting his finger on the problem that may lead to an enormous spike in grain prices and exacerbate hunger around the world, “which means Ukrainian farmers, and the rest of the world, are screwed.”
U.S. says it has committed $1.7 billion in security aid since invasion
The Biden administration has committed $2.4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since it took office in 2021, the White House said Thursday, of which more than $1.7 billion has been announced since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Kyiv.
The support includes hundreds of Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, more than 10,000 anti-armor systems, more than 1,400 Stinger antiaircraft systems, over 50 million rounds of ammunition, 7,000 small arms, Puma drones, radars, armored Humvees and medical supplies. More than 30 countries have sent security assistance, the White House said.
WHO: More than 70 have died in 103 ‘attacks on health care’
The World Health Organization said Thursday that 73 people have been killed and 51 injured in “attacks on health care” in Ukraine since the start of the war.
The WHO has verified 103 attacks, with 89 affecting health facilities and more than a dozen on transportation, including ambulances, according to a news release.
The global public health body defines attacks as “any act of verbal or physical violence or obstruction or threat of violence that interferes with the availability, access and delivery of curative and/or preventive health services” on “health facilities, transport, personnel, patients, supplies and warehouses.”
“We are outraged that attacks on health care are continuing. Attacks on health care are a violation of international humanitarian law,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to the WHO, there are 1,000 health facilities in Ukraine that are “in proximity to conflict areas or in changed areas of control.”
The news release did not provide details on the attacks, but The Washington Post previously verified nine incidents where hospitals faced direct damage as a result of a reported Russian attack, including a strike on a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol, where at least three people died and more than a dozen were injured.
The latest on Ukraine’s key battlegrounds and retaken cities
Russian-held areas and troop movement
BELARUS
RUSSIA
POL.
Chernihiv
Separatist-
controlled
area
Kyiv
Lviv
Kharkiv
UKRAINE
Mariupol
Odessa
ROMANIA
200 MILES
Control areas as of April 7
Sources: Institute for the Study of War,
AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
THE WASHINGTON POST
Russian-held areas
and troop movement
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Chernihiv
POLAND
Chernobyl
Kyiv
Sumy
Lviv
Kharkiv
UKRAINE
Separatist-
controlled
area
Odessa
Mariupol
Berdyansk
ROMANIA
Kherson
Crimea
Annexed by Russia
in 2014
100 MILES
Black Sea
Control areas as of April 7
Sources: Institute for the Study of War, AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
Russian-held areas
and troop movement
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Chernihiv
POLAND
Chernobyl
Kyiv
Sumy
Lviv
Kharkiv
Separatist-
controlled
area
UKRAINE
Mykolaiv
Mariupol
Berdyansk
Kherson
ROMANIA
Odessa
Kherson
Crimea
Annexed by Russia
in 2014
100 MILES
Control areas as of April 7
Sources: Institute for the Study of War, AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Post reporting
- Luhansk region: All medical institutions and hospitals in the easternmost province of Ukraine were destroyed by Russian forces, governor Sergey Gaidai wrote on Telegram on Thursday, sharing photos of battered buildings, gutted hallways and shattered glass. Shelling in the area, where Ukrainian leaders have said the fiercest fighting is now happening, has devastated high-rises and blocked evacuation trains.
- Kharkiv region: In the neighboring region, governor Oleg Synegubov said Thursday that at least one woman was killed and 14 other people were wounded by Russian shelling. He urged residents to flee the danger, adding that evacuations from the towns of Lozova and Barvinkove are ongoing.
- Mariupol: Ukrainian and Russian officials’ accounts of the status of the hard-hit port city in southeastern Ukraine conflicted Thursday, with both claiming control after a weeks-long Russian siege. Some 100,000 residents are believed to be caught up in clashes as their supplies dwindle.
- Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touted diplomats’ return to the capital in his address Thursday, as Russian forces have retreated from the area. Since the withdrawal, German intelligence has shown the involvement of Russian troops in the slaying of citizens in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv.
- Borodyanka: When Ukrainian authorities returned to the newly liberated community, 30 miles northwest of Kyiv, they discovered decimated buildings, rattled survivors and a growing number of bodies. During a search of two apartment buildings, 26 bodies were found under the rubble, said Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova. There was still more debris and many other structures to search, she said, calling Borodyanka “the most destroyed city in the Kyiv region.”
- Melitopol: Mayor Ivan Fedorov said Russians have kidnapped more than 100 people, including teachers at the State Pedagogical University, as occupying Russians seek to bring education under their control.