As Russian troops withdraw to focus on eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian leaders expect more grim findings in recovered cities and towns. On Friday, a Russian rocket bombardment on a crowded train station meant to evacuate civilians killed around 30 people, according to officials.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said “thousands” of people were at the station in Kramatorsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, when it was hit by a missile, just hours after warning that Ukraine’s forces had previously discovered worse images of brutality in a hamlet north of Kyiv.
A social media post by Zelensky was accompanied by photographs of a railway car with damaged windows, abandoned luggage, and bodies lying in what appeared to be an outdoor waiting area. The strike, according to authorities, injured over 100 people.
“The inhumane Russians aren’t going to change their ways.” They are deliberately destroying the civilian population because they lack the strength or courage to face up to us on the battlefield,” the president added. “This is an evil that knows no bounds.” And if it isn’t punished, it will continue indefinitely.”
After failing to seize Kyiv, Russia has turned its attention to the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years and control some parts.
Officials in Ukraine encouraged civilians this week to flee to safer regions of the nation as quickly as possible and claimed they and Russia had agreed to set up numerous evacuation routes in the east. The city of Kramatorsk is located on government-controlled land.
In his nightly video presentation, Zelensky prophesied that as the Russians retreated from eastern Ukraine, more horrible discoveries would be uncovered in northern cities and villages. Evidence of citizens slain at close range and left on Bucha streets, he said, had already surfaced in Borodianka, a village outside the city, in a harsher form.
“And what will happen when the entire truth about what the Russian military did in Mariupol is revealed to the world?” Late Thursday, Zelensky stated something about the besieged southern port, which has suffered some of the worst sufferings since Russia invaded Ukraine. “What the world saw in Bucha and other towns in the Kyiv region when the Russian troops left was there on every street.” The same cruelty. The same heinous crimes.
After Ukraine’s foreign minister pleaded for weaponry from NATO and other friendly countries to help face an expected offensive in the east, NATO members decided to enhance their supply of guns, sparked by claims that Russian forces committed crimes in areas surrounding the capital.
Investigators discovered at least three sites of mass shootings of civilians during the Russian occupation, according to Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk. He claimed that most victims died from gunfire rather than bombardment and that some bodies were “dumped like firewood” into mass graves, including one at a children’s camp.
Fedoruk said 320 citizens had been verified dead as of Wednesday, but he expects more when bodies are discovered in the 50,000-person city. There are just 3,700 of them left.
In his nightly message, Zelensky warned that the horrors in Bucha could be only the beginning. He warned of much more casualties in the northern city of Borodianka, approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Bucha, stating “there it is far more horrific.”
The atrocities have been blamed on Moscow’s troops by Ukrainian and Western officials. The German foreign intelligence service heard radio transmissions between Russian forces discussing the slaughter of civilians, according to the weekly magazine Der Spiegel. The scenes in Bucha were wrongly believed to be orchestrated by Russia.
Russia has sustained significant army casualties during its six-week military action in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin spokeswoman.
“Yes, we have major personnel losses, and that is a terrible tragedy for us,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told Sky News.
Peskov also hinted that the combat could conclude “in the near future,” telling Sky that Russian troops were “doing their best to bring that operation to a close.”
Sergei Dubovienko, 52, went north in his little blue Lada with his wife and mother-in-law to Bashtanka, where they sought sanctuary in a church, a day after Russian forces began pounding their village in the southern Mykolaiv region.
In Pavlo-Marianovka, “they started trashing the houses and everything,” he added. “Then the tanks arrived out of nowhere from the woods.” We expected bombardment to resume in the morning, so I made the decision to escape.”
Hundreds of people have evacuated communities in Mykolaiv and Kherson that have been attacked or captured by the Russian military.
Marina Morozova and her husband were forced to flee Kherson, the Russians’ first major city.
“They are anticipating a major struggle.” We witnessed shells that did not detonate. She described it as “horrifying.”
Only Russian television and radio, according to Morozova, 69, were available. According to her, the Russians distributed humanitarian aid while filming the process.
The couple and others boarded a vehicle that would transport them west, desperate to get away from Russian troops. Some will attempt to flee the nation, while others will seek refuge in Ukraine’s more tranquil regions.
According to the United Nations, the war has forced at least 6.5 million people to flee the country.
Since Russia’s incursion on February 24, which began Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II, more than 4.3 million people have fled Ukraine, with half of them being children, according to the UNHCR.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 12 million people are stranded in Ukraine’s conflict zones.
Given the lack of trust between the sides, the UN’s humanitarian head told reporters on Thursday that he’s “not hopeful” about negotiating a cease-fire after meeting with officials in Kyiv and Moscow this week. He commented just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of abandoning offers on Crimea and the country’s military posture.
On Friday, two top European Union officials and Slovakia’s prime minister flew to Kyiv to bolster the EU’s support for Ukraine. Eduard Heger, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and EU foreign policy leader Josep Borrell have trade and humanitarian relief suggestions for Zelensky and his government, according to Prime Minister Eduard Heger.
Heger says part of that is “to provide options for moving grains, especially wheat.” Ukraine is a significant world wheat producer, and Russia’s war on Ukraine is causing shortages throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.
Western countries have tightened sanctions, and the Group of Seven major world powers has warned that they will continue to tighten sanctions until Russian forces leave Ukraine.
The United States Congress voted Thursday to sever normal trade relations with Russia and prohibit the importation of its oil, while the European Union approved additional measures, including a coal import restriction. Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly voted to expel Russia from the world organization’s top human rights council.
The United Nations decision, according to US President Joe Biden, illustrated how “Putin’s war has rendered Russia a worldwide pariah.” He described the visuals from Bucha as “horrifying.”
“The signs of individuals being raped, tortured, executed, and, in some cases, having their bodies desecrated,” Biden added.
