Horrifying scenes as Putin’s evil troops massacre at least 50 civilians at busy train station

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Summary of the news tonight

Thank you for reading my coverage this evening. My colleague Joe Gamp will be with you in the morning.
Before I log off, here’s a summary of the biggest news from today:

• Boris Johnson has tonight pledged another £100 million in high grade military equipment to Ukraine
  • Of that Mr Johnson has promised he would give Ukraine’s military more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, another 800 anti-tank missiles, and precision munitions
• EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has said that Russia must be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes in Ukraine
• According to Ukraine, around 121,000 children are among more than 600,000 Ukrainians that have been forcibly deported to Russia
• Ukraine’s southern city of Odessa today imposed a weekend curfew over a “missile strike threat” from Russia
• The Ukrainian prosecutor generals office says approximately 67 bodies were buried in a mass grave near a church in Bucha
• Ukraine say Russia has lost 19,000 troops during invasion
  • It also claims 19,000 Russian troops have been killed, and 1,891 armoured personnel vehicles have been destroyed.
    • Other military equipment that has been wiped out includes 135 helicopters, 700 tanks and 150 aircraft
• United Nations’ children’s agency has issued a statement to “strongly condemn” the missile strike on Kramatorsk train station
• The death toll from the railway station attack in Kramatorsk has increased to 50 Ukrainian civilians.

Girl, 14, raped by Russian troops in Bucha, Ukrainian ombudswomam claims

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman has alleged a 14-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy were raped by Russian troops in the town of Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv.

In a statement on Facebook, Lyudmila Denisova also claimed a 20-year-old woman was raped in the northern city of Irpin.

The allegations follow the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warning that credible reports were emerging of torture, rape and killings by Russian forces.

Thousands evacuated through humanitarian corridors today

Today, a total of 6,665 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said.

This is up from the 4,676 people who escaped on Thursday.

Ukrainian officials say 67 buried in mass grave

The Ukrainian prosecutor generals office says approximately 67 bodies were buried in a mass grave near a church in Bucha.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Friday that 18 bodies had been located so far – 16 with bullet wounds and two with bullet and shrapnel wounds. Two were women and the rest were men, she said.

This means that they killed civilians, shot them, Venediktova said, speaking as workers pulled corpses out under spitting rain.

Black body bags were laid in rows in the mud.

The prosecutor generals office is investigating the deaths, and other mass casualties involving civilians, as possible war crimes.
Venediktova added: “the European Union is involved in the investigation and we are coordinating our actions.”

EU says resuming diplomatic presence in Kyiv

The European Union will resume its diplomatic presence in Ukrainian capital Kyiv, after temporarily moving it to Poland after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bloc said today.

Matti Maasikas, head of the EU delegation in Ukraine, joined top EU officials visiting the country on Friday and will remain in Kyiv to reopen the delegation and assess conditions for staff to return, the bloc’s diplomatic service said.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said the move would enhance the bloc’s interactions with the Ukrainian government and help support Ukrainian citizens.

UK pledges new military support for Ukraine

The UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has tonight pledged another £100 million in high grade military equipment to Ukraine.

The PM spoke at a news conference with German chancellor Olaf Scholz this afternoon and Mr Johnson said he would give Ukraine’s military more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, another 800 anti-tank missiles, and precision munitions.

He also promised more helmets, night vision googles and body armour.

British citizens told to avoid Russian airlines

British citizens should avoid Russian airlines due to safety concerns, transport minister Grant Shapps has said.

This comes following a decision by Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to put Russia on a safety watchlist.

“I urge all British nationals to avoid flying with a Russian airline,” Mr Shapps said in a statement, adding the CAA had acted “due to our concerns that the Russian authorities are actively promoting unsafe practices”.

Priti Patel apologises as figures show just 12,000 Ukrainians have arrived to UK

The UK’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has apologised after she was met with criticism regarding the time taken for Ukrainian refugees to arrive to the UK.

Around 12,000 people had arrived to the UK under the Ukrainian visa schemes as of Tuesday, according to Home Office figures.

Some 10,800 people had arrived under the Ukraine family scheme, provisional data published on the department’s website shows.

But only 1,200 had arrived to the UK as part of the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme.

As of Thursday, about 79,800 applications had been submitted to the schemes and 40,900 visas had been granted.

In an interview with the BBC, Ms Patel said: “I apologise with frustration myself… it takes time to start up a new route.”

Explosion near Novy Oskol

The governor of the Belgorod region has said that there was an explosion near Novy Oskol at 18:45 today.

They added it was the “sound of defensive event”.

More than 80% of Russian troops refuse to fight

Ukraine’s General Staff have today claimed that more than 80% of Russian troops in some units refuse to fight.

Russian commanders have reportedly refuse to accept applications for the dismissal of military personnel.

Authorities close down Amnesty in Russia

Today, the Russian authorities have closed down representative offices of Amnesty International and other international NGOs.

Reacting to the news, Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said: “Amnesty’s closing down in Russia is only the latest in a long list of organizations that have been punished for defending human rights and speaking the truth to the Russian authorities. In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked or forced to self-censor, and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated, you must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up.

“The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by closing down our office in Moscow they will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations. We continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russia’s egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad.

“We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience unjustly detained for standing up for human rights. We will continue to defend independent journalism’s ability to report actual facts, free of the Russian government’s intervention. We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine or Syria, face justice. Put simply, we will never give up.”

Russia ‘must be probed and punished for war crimes’

Josep Borrell – the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has said that Russia must be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes in Ukraine.

He and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen travelled to the city of Bucha where they saw a number of victims lying on the ground in body bags.

Mitsubishi halts production at Russian plant

Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors announced today it had stopped production at a Russian van plant in Kaluga that it owns with Stellantis until further notice, joining other major carmakers that have halted operations in Russia.

“Due to the logistical difficulties, vehicle exports and parts supply to Russia have been suspended since March,” Mitsubishi said in a statement.

Japan has joined the United States and other allies in slapping additional sanctions on Russia, including freezing assets of the country’s leaders and three financial institutions, to punish Russia for what Moscow calls “a special military operation” in Ukraine that started on Feb. 24.

Putin pictured with ‘Russia’s secret nuclear briefcase’

PARANOID Vladimir Putin was seen attending a Moscow funeral today surrounded by military guards carrying Russia’s ‘secret nuclear briefcase’.

The Russian president arrived at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, to pay his respects to firebrand ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Putin, dressed in black, made the sign of the cross in front of Zhirinovsky’s open casket as the political leader and his close ally was laid to rest.

The secret case is thought to contain the launch apparatus for the Kremlin’s strategic missiles and its presence at the funeral is seen as a chilling threat to the world.

The bag, which has a personalised key code, is normally under 24/7 supervision and completely controls Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.

It is reportedly supervised by an armed security officer who accompanies no-nonsense Putin wherever he travels.

The images come seven weeks after the leader put his nuke weapons on alert after lashing out at the NATO alliance over what he claimed were ‘aggressive’ sanctions.

EU chief promises sped-up process for Ukraine to seek membership

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged on Friday to offer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a speedier start to Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the European Union.

Handing Zelenskiy a questionnaire which will form a starting point for the EU to decide on membership for Kyiv, she said: “It will not as usual be a matter of years to form this opinion but I think a matter of weeks.” Zelenskiy said he would come back with answers in a week.

She underlined the sanctions put on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, saying: “Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards the European future, this is what I see.”

Russian forces abandon tanks in hasty withdrawal

A western official has provided interesting intelligence, saying that Russian forces had abandoned “a lot” of tanks, vehicles, and artillery in a “hasty” withdrawal.

Vladimir Putin’s operations had been “disastrous”, the official said.

“We can confirm that there are no longer units in northern Ukraine,” they told a news conference.

“It has been a pretty hasty withdrawal by Russian forces and there’s a lot of Russian equipment which has been abandoned in that hasty withdrawal and that’s only going to exacerbate the challenge they have in terms of the refurbishment and reconstitution of their forces as they remove them both into Belarus and into Russia.

“Some of it’s kind of unclear as to why it’s been abandoned because you might have thought there is some of these vehicles are still usable and you think they would have been able to take and I think there’s something around the collapse of morale and the collapse of the will to fight.”

Putin’s troops ‘deport 121,000 children to Russia’

According to Ukraine, around 121,000 children are among more than 600,000 Ukrainians that have been forcibly deported to Russia.

Lyudmila Denysova, Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, took to Facebook to announce this.

She said: “It is currently known that some of the children were taken by the occupiers from Mariupol to Donetsk and in the direction of Taganrog.

“Russian invaders say they are orphans, but all orphans and orphanages were evacuated from Mariupol centrally on February 24-25, days of war.

“Ukraine has no information that the children to be adopted have the status of orphans or deprived of parental care.

“Russia is repeating the scenario of 2014, when it deported Ukrainian children from the occupied Crimea by the so-called train of hope for their adoption.”

Ukraine: Russia has lost 19,000 troops during invasion

Ukraine has today provided its latest update on the number of losses Russia has suffered.

Since the start of the war, Ukraine claims 19,000 Russian troops have been killed, and 1,891 armoured personnel vehicles have been destroyed.

Other military equipment that has been wiped out includes 135 helicopters, 700 tanks and 150 aircraft.

Odessa imposes weekend curfew over ‘missile strike threat’

Ukraine’s southern city of Odessa on Friday imposed a weekend curfew over a “missile strike threat” from Russia, after the shelling of a train station that killed dozens in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

“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.

Ukraine has warned Russia is regrouping to launch a fresh offensive on the country’s east and south, after retreating from the Kyiv area.

An AFP reporter in Odessa heard explosions on Thursday, without knowing where they were coming from.

Last Sunday, Odessa was targeted by Russian strikes for the first time in two weeks.

The Black Sea port and cultural hub has so far been spared the destruction seen by other Ukrainian cities.

Ukrainian MP shares images of mass graves in Chernihiv

Images have emerged and have been shared across social media of what appear to be mass graves in the northern city of Chernihiv.

A round of images were shared by Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko, and they come as forensic investigators began exhuming a mass grave in the Ukrainian town of Bucha today.

UNICEF: ‘We fear the worst’

The United Nations’ children’s agency has issued a statement to “strongly condemn” the missile strike on Kramatorsk train station.

“We do not know yet how many children were killed and injured in the attack, but we fear the worst,” a statement from UNICEF’s Ukraine representative Murat Sahin said.

“Civilians, particularly children, must be protected from harm. The killing of children must stop now,” she added.

Boris Johnson suggests train station attack ‘war crime’

The UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said the attack on fleeing civilians at the Kramatorsk train station in Ukraine was “unconscionable”.

He went on to suggest that Vladimir Putin’s forces were guilty of a war crime.

He told a Downing Street press conference: “The attack at the train station in eastern Ukraine shows the depth to which Putin’s once vaunted army has sunk. At least 39 people killed and dozens wounded on a train platform crowded with women and children.

“It is a war crime indiscriminately to attack civilians and Russian crimes in Ukraine will not go unnoticed or unpunished.”

50 confirmed dead after attack in Kramatorsk

The death toll from the railway station attack in Kramatorsk has increased to 50 Ukrainian civilians.

This includes five children, the governor of the Donetsk region has said.