Ukraine-Russia war: Russia kicks out 15 human rights groups
Russia is kicking out 15 human rights groups as at least 50 people are killed in a missile attack on a major railway hub in eastern Ukraine. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
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Russia has cracked down on human rights advocacy bodies in Moscow, shutting down 15 offices - including those of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The announcement comes as Russia enters the 44th day of its deadly military campaign in Ukraine, in which thousands of people have been killed and more than 11 million have fled, sparking Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
According to Russia’s justice ministry, the groups “violated the current legislation of the Russian Federation” - but it declined to offer any further justification.
A defiant Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, refused to back down and said the group would continue to fight human rights violations in Russia.
“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 organisations have been outlawed or liquidated, you must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up.”
TRAIN STATION DEATH TOLL REACHES 50
It comes as the death toll in a train station attack in Kramatorsk has risen to at least 50 - including five children - as Russia denied responsibility for the atrocity.
The local governor for the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the number of dead could to increase as the full scale of the rocket attack emerges.
“Fifty dead, five of them children. This is the death toll at this hour after the strike by Russian occupational forces on the train station in Kramatorsk,” Mr Kyrylenko said on Telegram.
Prosecutors in the Donetsk region said there were about 4,000 civilians at the station, mostly women and children, at the time of the attack.
Body parts, packed bags and stuffed animals were flung across the floor after two rockets struck the busy hub, which Ukraine said has injured more than 300.
“I was in the station. I heard like a double explosion. I rushed to the wall for protection,” said Natalia, searching for her passport among the abandoned belongings. “I saw people covered in blood coming into the station and bodies everywhere on the ground. I don’t know if they were just injured or dead.”
The bodies, dressed in civilian clothing, were grouped together and placed under plastic sheets next to a kiosk daubed yellow and blue -- the colours of Ukraine’s flag -- outside the station, where blood pooled on the ground.
On the station platform, a walking stick lay next to a lump of flesh. Further along, a toy rabbit soaked red.
Russia’s defence ministry called the attack “provocation” and “untrue”, the same denial it has issued after alleged war crimes in Bucha, Mariupol, and other parts of the Ukraine conflict.
MISSILE STRIKE ON PACKED TRAIN STATION
Dozens of people were killed in a rocket attack on the train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Friday as civilians raced to leave the Donbas region in the crosshairs of the Russian army.
At least 39 people died, a rescue worker on the ground told AFP, and Ukraine said “over 300 were injured,” in one of the deadliest strikes of the six week-old war.
AFP journalists on the scene saw the bodies of at least 20 people grouped and lying under plastic sheets next to the station.
Blood was pooling on the ground and packed bags were strewn outside the building in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
The remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian was lying just adjacent to the main building.
This video as well as photos circulating show the words “for the children†scrawled on the Tochka-U rocket fired by Russian forces on Kramatorsk today. Kremlin propaganda has falsely claimed Ukraine is cynically attacking children. Reality: Russia is. pic.twitter.com/9n0SCcH8DO
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 8, 2022
The attack came as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Jose Borrell headed to Kyiv on Friday in a sign of solidarity with Ukraine.
The attack on the railway station showed “evil with no limits”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said thousands of civilians were at the train station when the missiles hit the building.
He said the station was “a gathering point for evacuation to safer parts of Ukraine”.
EU Council chief Charles Michel accused Russia of the “horrifying” rocket attack, saying Moscow was cutting off an escape route for civilians.
“Horrifying to see Russia strike one of the main stations used by civilians evacuating the region where Russia is stepping up its attack,” Michel said on Twitter.
“I strongly condemn this morning’s indiscriminate attack...by Russia” EU foreign policy Josep Borrell said in a separate tweet.
Russia’s defence ministry however said it did not launch the attack.
“All statements by representatives of the Kyiv nationalist regime about the ‘rocket attack’ allegedly carried out by Russia on April 8 at the railway station in the city of Kramatorsk are a provocation and are absolutely untrue,” the ministry said in a statement.
UK SANCTIONS PUTIN, LAVROV DAUGHTERS
Britain has announced sanctions on the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Foreign Office said it was targeting the “lavish lifestyles of the Kremlin’s inner circle” as it sanctioned Putin’s daughters Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, and Lavrov’s daughter Yekaterina Vinokurova.
The new sanctions follow similar actions by the United States in targeting the three women, who are now subject to UK travel bans and asset freezes.
“Through the G7, we are working with partners to end the use of Russian energy and further hit Putin’s ability to fund his illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” said Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
“Together, we are tightening the ratchet on Russia’s war machine, cutting off Putin’s sources of cash,” she added.
The UK has sanctioned more than 1200 individuals and businesses - including 76 oligarchs - since Russia’s military offensive began in February.
RUSSIA HAS SUFFERED ‘SIGNIFICANT LOSSES OF TROOPS’
Russian troops have suffered “significant losses” in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News, but did not specify a toll.
Mr Peskov said the loss of Russian troops in Ukraine was a “huge tragedy” to Russia, in a rare acknowledgement of the magnitude of Russian casualties.
Russia in late March said it had lost 1351 soldiers with another 3825 wounded.
A senior NATO military official told the Washington Post on March 24, a month into Russia’s attack on Ukraine, somewhere between 7000 and 15,000 Russian troops had been killed in the war, which Russia began with around 190,000 troops.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman also defended the causes and course of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Mariupol is going to be liberated from nationalistic battalions. We hope it is going to happen sooner than later,” he said of the devastated port city.
Mr Peskov rejected allegations of a massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as “a well-staged insinuation”, claiming that bodies found in the streets were placed after Russian troops withdrew.
“We are living in days of fakes and lies which we meet every day,” he said, speaking in English by video link from Moscow.
He also voiced regret at its suspension from the UN Human Rights Council:
“We’re sorry about that,” he said, after the UN General Assembly voted to suspend Moscow from the rights council as punishment for the invasion.
“And we’ll continue to defend our interests using every possible legal means,” he insisted.
HUNGARY ‘HELPING PUTIN’
Ukraine has accused its neighbour, Kremlin-ally Hungary, of appeasing Russian aggression and disrupting EU unity following a telephone call between the Hungarian and Russian leaders.
“Apparently, after the elections, Budapest moved on to the next step – helping (Russian President Vladimir) Putin continue his aggression against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Mr Putin congratulated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban after his party won a fourth term in general elections last week.
The two leaders spoke again on Wednesday and Mr Orban told Mr Putin that Hungary would be prepared to pay Russia in rubles for gas imports.
“We believe this statement of readiness to pay for Russian gas in rubles is an unfriendly position towards our state. Such statements also contradict the consolidated position of the European Union,” the Ukraine foreign ministry said.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said later on Thursday that his Ukrainian counterpart had not contacted him and urged Kyiv to “stop insulting us”.
“They ask for and wait for help, while attacking and accusing us in an immoral way,” he told Hungarian public TV from Brussels where he was attending a NATO meeting.
On Wednesday, Mr Orban said that during the call he had urged Mr Putin to implement an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, and he invited the leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine to meet the Russian leader in Budapest.
“Proposals to hold peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Budapest look cynical,” Kyiv’s statement said.
“If Hungary really wants to help end the war, here’s how to do it: stop destroying unity in the EU, support new anti-Russian sanctions, provide military assistance to Ukraine, and not create additional sources of funding for Russia’s military machine,” the statement said.
It said that Hungary had been reluctant to acknowledge “Russia’s undeniable responsibility” for “atrocities,” and that this could “strengthen Russia’s sense of impunity and encourage it to commit new atrocities against Ukrainians”.
Mr Orban had previously had one of the closest relationships to Mr Putin of any EU leader.
During his call with the Russian president, he restated his opposition to Hungary sending weapons to Ukraine and to the EU imposing an embargo on Russian energy imports, on which Hungary is highly dependent.
WAR CRIMES ‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’
More “war crimes” are expected to emerge as Russian troops pull back to eastern Ukraine and the fog of war lifts on previously occupied territories.
Both Russian and Ukrainian troops are accusing each other of committing atrocities during the brutal conflict, as more images and videos of the aftermath are released by the propaganda arms of the duelling war machines.
Video of Ukrainians shooting injured soldiers as they attempted to retreat emerged online days after reports of mass graves in Bucha.
The video, verified by The New York Times, shows a Russian lying in a pool of blood struggling to breathe with a jacket over his head.
After one man says: “Look, he’s still alive. He’s gasping”, a man to the right of the camera shoots him three times.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters that the video would be investigated, but that they “don’t understand how it feels after seeing pictures from Bucha”.
“Talking to people who escaped, knowing that the person you know was raped for days. You don’t understand how it feels that Russian soldiers rape children,” he said, Fox News reported.
“This is not an excuse to those who violate the rules of warfare on either side of the front line,” he continued.
“But there are some things which you simply can’t understand. I’m sorry.”
After bodies were found in Bucha, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said it’s likely the Russians are carrying out more “atrocities” across the country with the White House warning it is just the “tip of the iceberg”.
“For every Bucha, there are many more towns Russia has occupied and more towns that it is still occupying, places where we must assume Russian soldiers are committing more atrocities right now,” Mr Blinken told journalists after meeting foreign ministers from NATO and Ukraine in Brussels
Mr Peskov rejected allegations of a massacre in Bucha, claiming the bodies were placed there after Russian troops withdrew in “a well-staged insinuation”.
“We are living in days of fakes and lies which we meet every day,” he said, speaking to Sky News by video link from Moscow.
When asked how he sleeps at night, Mr Peskov was unrepentant, adding that Russians were “never shelling civilian objects” during the invasion.
“It’s not about my sleep at night, actually. This is about Ukrainian military and Ukrainian personnel trying to use civil people as a shield. They are covering themselves with civilian people and not letting them flee the town,” he said.
He added they hoped to soon liberate the people of Mariupol from “nationalistic battalions”.
Ukraine intelligence services released radio messages they claimed showed intercepted conversations between outnumbered Russian troops being ordered to “f-ing kill” civilians.
“Civilians, everyone, slay them all!” a Russian commander allegedly ordered his soldiers, according to the clip released by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU).
“F--king kill them all, for f--k’s sake!” he continues, according to the Ukraine translation.
“What is f--king wrong with you, motherf--kers?” he continues.
The United Nations voted to suspend Russia from its Human Rights Council over the invasion, with Ukraine’s foreign minister saying “war criminals” have no place in the United Nations agency.
Since the assault on February 24, Russia has been accused of war crimes ranging from indiscriminate bombing to executions. They include:
Bucha – About 20 bodies, some of whom appear to have been bound by their hands and feet before being shot, were found in the Ukrainian town of Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Motyzhyn – West of Kyiv, police found the bodies of five civilians with their hands tied behind their backs. They include that of the mayor Olga Sukhenko, her husband and their son, who was abducted by Russian troops on March 24.
Mariupol – In the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol, at least three people were killed, including a young girl, in an attack on a children’s hospital on March 9. Another 300 are believed by local authorities to have been killed on March 16 when Russian forces bombed a theatre where hundreds of civilians were taking shelter.
Cluster munitions – Human Rights Watch said cluster munitions were used in Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine on February 24, in the northeastern city of Kharkiv on February 28 and on three different occasions in the city of Mykolaiv in the south. Cluster munitions explode in the air and send dozens or hundreds of small bomblets over a large area.
Rape – The wife of a Ukrainian soldier from the Russian-occupied city of Kherson told reporters she was raped by two Russian soldiers after being branded by a fellow resident a “banderovka”, a term referring to hard line Ukrainian nationalists.
Ukrainian forces suspected – Human Rights Watch has called on Ukrainian authorities to launch an investigation into possible war crimes following the emergence on March 27 of video footage that appears to show its soldiers shooting Russian war prisoners in the legs.
Originally published as Ukraine-Russia war: Russia kicks out 15 human rights groups
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