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Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Ukraine: Russian missile kills 30 civilians at train station

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1132 days ago
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A Ukrainian serviceman walks on a destroyed Russian fighting vehicle in Bucha, Ukraine, Thursday, April 7, 2022. Russian troops left behind crushed buildings, streets littered with destroyed cars and residents in dire need of food and other aid in a northern Ukrainian city, giving fuel to Kyiv's calls Thursday for more Western support to help halt Moscow's offensive before it refocuses on the country's east. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A Ukrainian serviceman walks on a destroyed Russian fighting vehicle in Bucha, Ukraine, Thursday, April 7, 2022. Russian troops left behind crushed buildings, streets littered with destroyed cars and residents in dire need of food and other aid in a northern Ukrainian city, giving fuel to Kyiv's calls Thursday for more Western support to help halt Moscow's offensive before it refocuses on the country's east. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

By ADAM SCHRECK and AN­DREA ROSA | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

 

CHERNI­HIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrain­ian lead­ers pre­dict­ed more grue­some dis­cov­er­ies would be made in re­claimed cities and towns as Russ­ian sol­diers re­treat to fo­cus on east­ern Ukraine, where of­fi­cials said a Russ­ian rock­et at­tack on a packed train sta­tion used to evac­u­ate civil­ians killed over 30 peo­ple Fri­day.

Hours af­ter warn­ing that Ukraine’s forces al­ready had found worse scenes of bru­tal­i­ty in a set­tle­ment north of Kyiv, Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy said that “thou­sands” of peo­ple were at the sta­tion in Kram­a­torsk, a city in the east­ern Donet­sk re­gion, when it was hit by a mis­sile.

Ze­len­skyy ac­com­pa­nied a so­cial me­dia post with pho­tos that showed a train car with smashed win­dows, aban­doned lug­gage and bod­ies ly­ing in what looked like an out­door wait­ing area. Au­thor­i­ties said the strike wound­ed more than 100 peo­ple.

“The in­hu­man Rus­sians are not chang­ing their meth­ods. With­out the strength or courage to stand up to us on the bat­tle­field, they are cyn­i­cal­ly de­stroy­ing the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion,” the pres­i­dent said. “This is an evil with­out lim­its. And if it is not pun­ished, then it will nev­er stop.”

Af­ter fail­ing to take Ukraine’s cap­i­tal, Rus­sia has shift­ed its fo­cus to the Don­bas, a most­ly Russ­ian-speak­ing, in­dus­tri­al re­gion in east­ern Ukraine where Moscow-backed rebels have been fight­ing Ukrain­ian forces for eight years and con­trol some ar­eas.

Ukrain­ian of­fi­cials warned res­i­dents this week to leave as soon as pos­si­ble for safer parts of the coun­try and said they and Rus­sia had agreed to es­tab­lish mul­ti­ple evac­u­a­tion routes in the east. Kram­a­torsk is lo­cat­ed in gov­ern­ment-con­trolled ter­ri­to­ry.

In his night­ly video ad­dress, Ze­len­skyy pre­dict­ed more grue­some dis­cov­er­ies would be made in north­ern cities and towns the Rus­sians with­drew from the con­cen­trate on east­ern Ukraine. He said ev­i­dence of civil­ians killed at close range and dumped on streets in Bucha al­ready had sur­faced in a worse way in Boro­di­an­ka, an­oth­er set­tle­ment out­side the cap­i­tal.

“And what will hap­pen when the world learns the whole truth about what the Russ­ian troops did in Mar­i­upol?” Ze­len­skyy said late Thurs­day, re­fer­ring to the be­sieged south­ern port that has seen some of the great­est suf­fer­ing since Rus­sia in­vad­ed Ukraine. “There on every street is what the world saw in Bucha and oth­er towns in the Kyiv re­gion af­ter the de­par­ture of the Russ­ian troops. The same cru­el­ty. The same ter­ri­ble crimes.”

Spurred by re­ports that Russ­ian forces com­mit­ted atroc­i­ties in ar­eas sur­round­ing the cap­i­tal, NA­TO na­tions agreed to in­crease their sup­ply of arms af­ter Ukraine’s for­eign min­is­ter plead­ed for weapons from the al­liance and oth­er sym­pa­thet­ic coun­tries to help face down an ex­pect­ed of­fen­sive in the east.

Bucha May­or Ana­toliy Fe­doruk said in­ves­ti­ga­tors found at least three sites of mass shoot­ings of civil­ians dur­ing the Russ­ian oc­cu­pa­tion. Most vic­tims died from gun­shots, not from shelling, he said, and some corpses with their hands tied were “dumped like fire­wood” in­to mass graves, in­clud­ing one at a chil­dren’s camp.

Fe­doruk said 320 civil­ians were con­firmed dead as of Wednes­day, but he ex­pect­ed more as bod­ies are found in the city that was home to 50,000 peo­ple. On­ly 3,700 re­main, he said.

In his night­ly ad­dress, Ze­len­skyy said Bucha’s hor­rors may be on­ly the be­gin­ning. In the north­ern city of Boro­di­an­ka, just 30 kilo­me­ters (20 miles) north­west of Bucha, he warned of even more ca­su­al­ties, say­ing “there it is much more hor­ri­ble.”

Ukrain­ian and sev­er­al West­ern lead­ers have blamed the mas­sacres on Moscow’s troops. The week­ly mag­a­zine Der Spiegel re­port­ed Ger­many’s for­eign in­tel­li­gence agency in­ter­cept­ed ra­dio mes­sages among Russ­ian sol­diers dis­cussing killings of civil­ians. Rus­sia has false­ly claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged.

A Krem­lin spokesman said Thurs­day that Rus­sia has suf­fered ma­jor troop ca­su­al­i­ties dur­ing its six-week mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Ukraine.

“Yes, we have sig­nif­i­cant loss­es of troops and it is a huge tragedy for us,” Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov told Sky News.

Peskov al­so hint­ed the fight­ing might be over “in the fore­see­able fu­ture,” telling Sky that Russ­ian troops were “do­ing their best to bring an end to that op­er­a­tion.”

On Thurs­day, a day af­ter Russ­ian forces be­gan shelling their vil­lage in the south­ern Myko­laiv re­gion, Sergei Dubovienko, 52, drove north in his small blue La­da with his wife and moth­er-in-law to Bash­tan­ka, where they sought shel­ter in a church.

“They start­ed de­stroy­ing the hous­es and every­thing” in Pavlo-Mar­i­anov­ka, he said. “Then the tanks ap­peared from the for­est. We thought that in the morn­ing there would be shelling again, so I de­cid­ed to leave.”

Hun­dreds of peo­ple have fled vil­lages in the Myko­laiv and Kher­son re­gions that are ei­ther un­der at­tack or oc­cu­pied by Russ­ian forces.

Ma­ri­na Mo­ro­zo­va and her hus­band fled from Kher­son, the first ma­jor city to fall to the Rus­sians.

“They are wait­ing for a big bat­tle. We saw shells that did not ex­plode. It was hor­ri­fy­ing,” she said.

Mo­ro­zo­va, 69, said on­ly Russ­ian tele­vi­sion and ra­dio was avail­able. The Rus­sians hand­ed out hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid, she said, and filmed the dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Anx­ious to keep mov­ing away from Russ­ian troops, the cou­ple and oth­ers board­ed a van that would take them west. Some will try to leave the coun­try, while oth­ers will re­main in qui­eter parts of Ukraine.

The Unit­ed Na­tions es­ti­mates the war has dis­placed at least 6.5 mil­lion peo­ple with­in the coun­try.

The U.N. refugee agency, UN­HCR, said that more than 4.3 mil­lion, half of them chil­dren, have left Ukraine since Rus­sia launched its in­va­sion on Feb. 24 and sparked Eu­rope’s largest refugee cri­sis since World War II.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion es­ti­mates more than 12 mil­lion peo­ple are strand­ed in ar­eas of Ukraine un­der at­tack.

The Unit­ed Na­tions’ hu­man­i­tar­i­an chief told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on Thurs­day that he’s “not op­ti­mistic” about se­cur­ing a cease-fire af­ter meet­ing with of­fi­cials in Kyiv and in Moscow this week, giv­en the lack of trust be­tween the sides. He spoke hours af­ter Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov ac­cused Ukraine of back­track­ing on pro­pos­als it had made over Crimea and Ukraine’s mil­i­tary sta­tus.

Two top Eu­ro­pean Union of­fi­cials and the prime min­is­ter of Slo­va­kia trav­eled to Kyiv on Fri­day, look­ing to shore up the EU’s sup­port for Ukraine. Prime Min­is­ter Ed­uard Heger said he, EU Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen and EU for­eign pol­i­cy chief Josep Bor­rell have trade and hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid pro­pos­als for Ze­len­skyy and his gov­ern­ment.

Part of that, Heger says is “to of­fer op­tions for trans­port­ing grains, in­clud­ing wheat.” Ukraine is a ma­jor world wheat sup­pli­er and Rus­sia’s war on Ukraine is cre­at­ing short­ages, no­tably in the Mid­dle East.

West­ern na­tions have stepped up sanc­tions, and the Group of Sev­en ma­jor world pow­ers warned that they will keep adding mea­sures un­til Russ­ian troops leave Ukraine.

The U.S. Con­gress vot­ed Thurs­day to sus­pend nor­mal trade re­la­tions with Rus­sia and ban the im­por­ta­tion of its oil, while the EU ap­proved oth­er new steps, in­clud­ing an em­bar­go on coal im­ports. The U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, mean­while, vot­ed to sus­pend Rus­sia from the world or­ga­ni­za­tion’s lead­ing hu­man rights body.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said the U.N. vote demon­strat­ed how “Putin’s war has made Rus­sia an in­ter­na­tion­al pari­ah.” He called the im­ages com­ing from Bucha “hor­ri­fy­ing.”

“The signs of peo­ple be­ing raped, tor­tured, ex­e­cut­ed — in some cas­es hav­ing their bod­ies des­e­crat­ed — are an out­rage to our com­mon hu­man­i­ty,” Biden said.

___

Adam Schreck re­port­ed from Kyiv, Ukraine. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists around the world con­tributed to this re­port.


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