War in Ukraine: Weekend Curfew in Odessa; Kramatorsk Railway Attack Toll Rises to 50 | Top Updates

At least 50 people, including children, were killed on Friday in a rocket attack on a train station packed with civilians in Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk, Ukraine. Condemning the incident in which 300 were reported wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike as “evil with no limits,” though Russia’s defence ministry denied carrying out the attack in its more than six-week war against Ukraine.

“The attack on a Ukrainian train station is yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety,” Biden said on Twitter.

The attack comes as authorities began exhuming bodies found in mass graves in Bucha. Hundreds are said to have been killed in the town just northwest of Kyiv which was occupied by Russian troops. Kremlin has denied the allegations that Russian forces had executed civilians in Bucha and said the claims are a “monstrous forgery” aimed at denigrating the Russian army.

Some 700 people have been killed in the Ukrainian city of Chernigiv, including both military and civilians, since the start of Russia’s invasion in February, mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said, adding that two-thirds of the pre-war population of 300,000 people had fled.

Meanwhile, Turkey is pushing to revive talks between Russia and Ukraine stalled talks amid tensions over killings in Bucha and Kramatorsk, stating the two countries are still ready to meet on its soil. “The positive atmosphere that emerged after the Istanbul talks last week between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were “overshadowed” by “shameful” images from Bucha, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Here are the top developments of the day

1. Ruslan Kravchenko, from the prosecutor’s office in Bucha, said they had exhumed 20 bodies, 18 of whom had firearms and shrapnel wounds. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said “Only the civilian population was targeted. There is no military site here,” she said, describing evidence of war crimes “at every turn”. Fresh allegations emerged from other areas too, with villagers in Obukhovychi, northwest of Kyiv, telling AFP they were used as human shields.
2. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited a mass grave in Bucha with the bloc’s diplomatic chief Josep Borrell. “The unthinkable has happened here. We have seen the cruel face of Putin’s army. We have seen the recklessness and the coldheartedness with which they have been occupying the city,” von der Leyen told reporters in Bucha.
3. Slovakia has donated its S-300 air defence system to Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger said on Friday. US President Joe Biden thanked the country stating America would reposition a Patriot missile system to replace it.
4. France has condemned the rocket strike on train station in Kramatorsk as “crime against humanity.” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, “They hit a station where there are refugees, civilians and so this can be seen as a crime against humanity.”
5. UN agency said world food prices hit an all-time high in March following Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s main breadbaskets and the invasion and international sanctions against Russia has spurred fears of a global hunger crisis, especially across the Middle East and Africa. “World food commodity prices made a significant leap in March to reach their highest levels ever, as war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils,” the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement.
6. Russia’s justice ministry revoked the registration of 15 foreign organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Russian units of the organisations, which also included the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “were excluded due to the discovery of violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said in a statement.
7. Ukraine’s Odessa on imposed a weekend curfew over a “missile strike threat” from Russia. “A curfew will be introduced in Odessa and Odessa region from 9 pm on April 9 to 6 am April 11,” Odessa’s regional military administration said on Facebook. The decision was taken “given events in Kramatorsk” and “threat of a missile strike on Odessa”, it said.
8. Britain announced sending Ukraine more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and 800 anti-tank missiles after attack on Kramatorsk station. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the “high-grade military equipment” is worth £100 million ($130 million, 120 million euros), with the UK anti-tank missiles seen as particularly potent against Russian forces. The attack at Kramatorsk “shows the depths to which (Vladimir) Putin’s once-vaunted army has sunk”, he told reporters alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who called the Russian strike “atrocious”
9. Russia’s foreign ministry said it is expelling 45 Polish diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after Warsaw last month expelled the same number of Russian diplomats for espionage. Meanwhile, Finland said it will expel two Russian diplomats over the war in Ukraine. “The measure is in line with those taken by other EU member states”, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
10. The EU has so far frozen nearly 30 billion euros in assets from blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies under sanctions imposed for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. A total of 29.5 billion euros ($32 billion) “including assets such as boats, helicopters, real estate and artwork” have been seized and another 196 billion euros of transactions have been blocked, the European Commission said in a statement.

(With inputs from agencies)

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