Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for not just a condemnation but a “strong global response” after the deadly bombing of a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday, where many civilians are trying to escape a large-scale Russian operation.

“This is another Russian war crime for which one of those involved should be held accountable,” Zelensky said in a video message yesterday, following the missile attack that killed 52 people, five of whom were children.

“World powers have already condemned Russia’s attack on Kramatorsk. We look forward to a global response to this war crime,” he added.

US President Joe Biden denounced Moscow’s “horrible atrocities”, denied Moscow was involved in the attack, said it was not the type of missile used and the bombing was a Ukrainian “provocation”.

But a senior US defense official cautioned that the Russians “reported an initial successful attack” and “withdrew only after information about civilian casualties”.

In fact, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Friday that it was destroyed by high-precision missiles at the Pokrovsk, Sloviansk and Barbinkove stations near Kramatorsk, the “capital” of Donbass. control of Kiev.

‘For our children’

The governor of the Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, quoted by the Interfax agency, assured that it was a Tochka U-type missile with cluster bombs.

The missile landed around 10:30 am (04:30 GMT), an hour when hundreds of people waited for days at the station to wait for a train to leave Donbass. pro-government separatists.

In front of the station were the bent remains of the missile with the inscription “For our children” in Russian. 2014.

This morning, 24 hours after the bombing, civilian evacuations from Kramatorsk continued by road. AFP journalists confirmed that dozens of survivors of Friday’s attack, who spent the night at a church near the station, got into the vans and pickup trucks.

The tragedy coincided with the visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, to Ukraine, which visited the city of Bucha, near Kyiv, which has become a symbol of atrocities. this war.

There, after the withdrawal of Russian forces in early April, dozens of bodies in plain clothes appeared, some with their hands tied behind their backs.

After the visit, von der Leyen said, “My instinct is, ‘If this is not a war crime, what is a war crime?’ “We have seen with our own eyes that the destruction in this city is aimed at civilians. Houses are not military targets.”

After withdrawing its troops from Kyiv and northern Ukraine, Russia is focusing its attack on the Donbass and the country’s southern coastline. Analysts believe that President Vladimir Putin wants to take control of this region before May 9, when the end of the Second World War is celebrated.

Ukrainian authorities are trying to minimize the damage by declaring expedited evacuations of civilians in the east in the face of “the threat of a missile attack” or a curfew in the important Black Sea port city of Odessa.

arms shipment

New criminal charges against civilians prompted Western powers to step up their sanctions on Russia, which was excluded from the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday.

However, multiple economic measures failed to weaken the Russian currency Ruble, which recovered after the initial sharp decline thanks to energy exports and the control measures taken by the Central Bank of Russia.

In fact, this institution even announced that it will re-authorize the sale of foreign exchange, which was suspended at the beginning of March, as of April 18.

The European Union, which decided to stop coal imports from Russia and close the ports to Russian ships, increased the pressure on the Kremlin, including the two daughters of President Vladimir Putin on the sanction list.

Britain did the same, adding the daughter of foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

However, Ukraine specifically demands the “immediate” delivery of weapons to offset the feared Russian offensive in the east.

In this regard, the UK announced that it is deploying more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Slovakia also donated Soviet-designed S-300 air defense systems to Kiev.

Russia’s Ministry of Justice, which is increasingly the target of blame by human rights organizations, ordered the closure of local offices of organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Friday.

After a month and a half of occupation, the repercussions of the conflict between the two major grain exporters are being felt around the world: FAO, the United Nations agency, warned that world food prices hit “highest levels on record” in March. “.