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Scores of people, including children, were killed Friday after two rockets hit a railway station in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region as thousands tried to evacuate the area, Ukrainian officials said.
"This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said following the attack, which Donetsk’s governor said had also left nearly 100 people injured. NBC News was unable to independently verify the strikes or the reported death toll and injuries.
Fifty people died in the attack, Zelenskyy said in a video address later Friday.
Russia has denied carrying out the attack, with the country's defense ministry calling Ukraine's accusations a "provocation." Moscow has consistently denied targeting civilians in its attacks on Russia.
“Obviously, we are not buying the denial by the Russians that they weren’t responsible,” a senior U.S. Defense official said at a briefing Friday. “I would note that they originally claimed a successful strike, and then only retracted it when there were reports of civilian casualties.”
Also Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv and said the European Union will propose an additional 500 million euros in support of Ukraine’s armed forces. She also pledged to accelerate Ukraine’s application to join to EU.
U.K. pledges $130M in more military aid to Ukraine
LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged another 100 million pounds ($130 million) in high-grade military equipment to Ukraine, saying Britain wants to help Ukraine defend itself.
Speaking Friday at a news conference with Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Johnson said he would give Ukraine’s military more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, another 800 anti-tank missiles, and precision munitions capable of lingering in the sky until directed to their target.
He also promised more helmets, night vision and body armor. The items were in addition to some 200,000 pieces of non-lethal military equipment from the UK that had already been promised.
The pledge of new weaponry came as Johnson condemned the attack on train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk earlier Friday. Women and children gathering on a train platform perished in the blast.
Johnson said both the U.K. and Germany shared the “revulsion at the brutality being unleashed, including the unconscionable bombing of refugees fleeing their homes,” adding that the train station attack “shows the depths to which Putin’s vaunted army has sunk.’’
Pentagon’s Kirby: Russia conducted railway station strike with ballistic missile
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called the deadly attack on a Ukrainian railway station "Russian brutality.”
He dismissed Russian claims that it was not behind the attack in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region. Friday's strike occurred as thousands of Ukrainians tried to flee the region.
“We find unconvincing Russian claims that they weren’t involved — particularly when the ministry actually announced it, and then when they saw reports of civilian casualties decided to unannounce it,” Kirby said at a briefing Friday.
He said that the U.S. assesses Russian forces used a short-range ballistic missile to carry out the strike.
“It is again, of a piece with the Russian brutality in the prosecution of this war, and their carelessness,” Kirby said.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in Ukraine. But hospitals and other structures have been attacked. The World Health Organization said it has verified over 100 attacks on health care. Images of corpses in civilian clothes in the Kyiv area town of Bucha, and accounts of survivors and witnesses of executions by Russian forces, have added to accusations that Russian forces have committed war crimes.
Ukraine’s president: Attack on railway station was another war crime by Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said the attack on a railway station that killed at least 50 people was “another war crime of Russia.”
Zelenskyy in a nightly video address said that five children were among those killed at the railway station in Kramatorsk, which is in the eastern part of the country. Dozens more people are seriously wounded, he said.
“This is another war crime of Russia, for which everyone involved will be held accountable,” Zelenskyy said.
Russia has denied the attack, but a U.S. Defense official said Friday they do not believe Russia’s claims and assess that Russia used a short-range ballistic missile.
The strike comes days after accusations of war crimes following scenes of dead bodies in civilian clothes in the street of the Kyiv area town of Bucha after Russian forces withdrew.
“We expect a firm, global response to this war crime,” Zelenskyy said. “Like the massacre in Bucha, like many other Russian war crimes, the missile strike on Kramatorsk must be one of the charges at the tribunal, which is bound to happen."
Russian officials have reacted to the photos and videos of Bucha by calling them “staged.”
Thousands flee southern, eastern Ukraine, official says
Thousands of people fleeing Russia’s invasion evacuated hard-hit regions on Friday as invading forces detained a convoy of buses in the country's south, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
More than 3,500 of the evacuees were from Melitopol and other cities in the Zaporizhia region, she said. Roughly 1,600 were from the devastated city of Mariupol, where the city’s mayor said Wednesday that at least 5,000 people have died since Russia invaded Feb. 24.
Russian forces detained eight buses in Melitopol, she said, adding that officials were negotiating for their return and locals were evacuated. It wasn’t immediately clear where they were sent.
Another 1,500 people fled cities in the separatist Luhansk region after Ukrainian officials said Russian forces struck a train station in another separatist area, killing scores of people.
Russian officials have denied carrying out the attack and called it a “provocation.”
Biden signs oil ban, trade suspension into law
President Joe Biden signed two bills on Friday that ban oil imports and suspend trade with Russia, making official pledges he made last month to further target the country’s economy for its invasion of Ukraine.
The first law, the “Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act” halts all energy products from the Russian Federation. The second suspends normal trade relations with the federation and Belarus, an ally of Russia.
Speaking last month, Biden said the oil ban would hit the “main artery of Russia’s economy,” while the trade suspension would help leave the country more disconnected.
"As Putin continues his merciless assault, the United States and our allies and partners continue to work in lockstep to ramp up the economic pressures on Putin and to further isolate Russia on a global stage,” the president said.
Russia evicts international human rights watchers
Russia on Friday effectively shut down the domestic operations of multiple human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty said in a statement that Russia closed its Moscow office. Human Rights Watch tweeted that it has been deregistered by the government.
Human Rights Watch said it has been working inside Russia since the Soviet era, predating 1991, "when it was a closed totalitarian state."
Amnesty said other global nonprofits shut out of Russia include the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch vowed that the government's action would not stop them from documenting human rights abuses by Russia.
Russia leaves Kyiv with 85% of its combat power, U.S. says
As it continued to move away from Ukraine's capital, the Russian military has retained 80 to 85 percent of the combat power it had when the invasion began Feb. 24, a senior Defense Department official said Friday.
"The aggregate tells us that they are under 85 percent of their assessed available combat power when they started this invasion," the official said during a briefing.
The news came as U.S. intelligence indicated invading forces were returning to Russia, including to Belgorod and to Valuyki, a town southeast of Belgorod, the defense official said. The locations may be points of resupply, the official said.
Russia has launched more than 1,500 missiles since the invasion began, the official said, and small arms ammunition continues to flow into Ukraine.
