The war in Ukraine: 39 dead in rocket strike on rail evacuation hub

Ukraine on Friday said dozens of people died and many more were wounded in a rocket strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing fighting and a threat of a major Russian offensive in the country's east.

As regional authorities rushed civilians out of harm’s way, European Union leaders arrived in Kyiv to offer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy support and reassurance that there will be a path to EU membership for Ukraine.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region where the Kramatorsk station is located, said at least 39 people were killed and 87 wounded, with many in serious condition. “They wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible,” he said, adding that thousands of civilians had been at the station when the rockets struck.

Kyrylenko also said the rocket that struck the station contained cluster munitions, which explode in mid-air, spraying small lethal bomblets over a wider area. Their use is banned under a 2008 convention.

The Russian defence ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine and that Russia’s armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.

Zelenskiy said no Ukrainian troops were at the station.

The White House decried the “horrific and devastating images” of the deadly train station attack.

Meanwhile, Moscow, which has previously acknowledged its military move into Ukraine has not progressed as quickly as it wanted,  acknowledged its rising death toll. “We have significant losses of troops,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Sky News. “It’s a huge tragedy for us.” REUTERS

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Food prices soar to record levels

Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month largely because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the “massive supply disruptions” it is causing, threatening millions of people in Africa, the West Asia elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment, the United Nations said on Friday.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6 per cent from February.

As it is, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990.

The FAO said the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1 per cent rise in the price of grains. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for around 30 per cent and 20 per cent of global wheat and corn exports, respectively.

While predictable given February’s steep rise, “this is really remarkable”, said Josef Schmidhuber, deputy director of the FAO’s markets and trade division. “Clearly, these very high prices for food require urgent action.” 

The biggest price increases were for vegetable oils: That price index rose 23.2 per cent, driven by higher quotations for sunflower seed oil. AP/PTI