The death toll in the Kramatorsk, Ukraine, train station strike rose to 57, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration said Sunday.
“As of 11 a.m. today, April 10 [the total is] 57 dead, 109 injured,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said. “Those with minor injuries have been released to go home, the heavily injured are being transported to safe regions and being provided with the necessary aid.”
Clean-up operations at the site of the blast have begun. CNN saw workers wearing plastic gloves gather scattered human remains. Others looked through papers and documents that were strewn across the station. Plastic bags filled with food lay on the ground, alongside shredded hats, gloves and shoes.
Several points of impact from the strike were visible, including what appeared to have been a direct hit on a car. Pools of blood and a deceased dog, partially covered by white sheeting, lay by the tracks.
Here are more of the latest headlines from the Russia-Ukraine conflict:
- Ukraine’s foreign minister says Russia’s initial plan for the invasion “failed”: Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Russia’s initial plan of the invasion of Ukraine “failed” and that “history will demonstrate whose plan will prevail,” after Russia appointed a new general to lead its military invasion. When asked to comment on the appointment of Russia’s Army Gen. Alexander Dvornikov to direct the war in Ukraine, Kuleba said, “now they have another plan, but we have our plans.” He added, “Whatever Russia is planning to do, we have our strategy and this strategy is based on the assumption that, on the confidence that we will win this war and we will liberate our territories.”
- Russians may be preparing a major offensive in the east of Ukraine: Ukrainian officials say major fighting is underway in the east of the country, with heavy shelling reported throughout the Donbas region, ahead of what they are warning may be a major Russian offensive. Ukraine’s defense intelligence chief on Friday told CNN that Russian troops are regrouping across the border and plan to advance toward Kharkiv. Officials have urged the evacuation of civilians from the region, as Russian forces shift focus to southern and eastern Ukraine. Satellite images collected and analyzed by Maxar Technologies show an eight-mile-long military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk on April 8. The town sits to the east of Kharkiv, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
- Former CIA director says battle in eastern Ukraine “will be quite a fight” as Russian forces group Retired Gen. David Petraeus, the former CIA director and commander of Central Command who also oversaw the war in Afghanistan until 2010, said that Ukrainians can expect “quite a fight” as Russian forces are preparing for a “massive breakthrough” in eastern Ukraine.
- Ukraine foreign minister: “Extremely difficult” to think about negotiations after Russian attacks in Kramatorsk, Bucha: Kuleba said Sunday it would be “extremely difficult” to even think about negotiations with Russia, after the missile strike in the eastern city of Kramatorsk and the atrocities committed in the town of Bucha. “It’s extremely difficult to even think about sitting down with people who commit or find excuses for all these atrocities and war crimes, who have inflicted such a horrendous damage on Ukraine,” Kuleba said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
- US Rep. Cheney says missile strike against Ukrainian train station “clearly is genocide”: Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday morning that she thinks the missile strike on the Ukrainian train station this week “clearly is genocide,” and said that European countries need to “understand that they’re funding that genocidal campaign” through the purchase of oil and gas from Russia. “I understand the economic consequences to countries in Western Europe if they were to impose a kind of oil and gas embargo that the US has imposed against Russian oil and gas – but they need to do it.” Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the US should increase its own production of oil to aid Europe, but added, “they need to understand that every single time, every single day that they are continuing to import Russian oil and gas, they’re funding Putin’s genocide in Ukraine.”
- US national security adviser warns new Russian general could carry out further civilian attacks: NSA Jake Sullivan warned that the US expects Russia’s new top general directing its war in Ukraine to carry out further brutal attacks on civilians. “This particular general has a resume that includes brutality against civilians in other theaters, in Syria, and we can expect more of the same in this theater,” Sullivan told Tapper on “State of the Union.” “This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians.”