Ukraine Says 50 Killed in Rocket Strike on Rail Evacuation Hub

Ukrainian servicemen stand next to a fragment of a Tochka-U missile with a writing in Russian "For children" , on a grass after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP)
Ukrainian servicemen stand next to a fragment of a Tochka-U missile with a writing in Russian "For children" , on a grass after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP)
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Ukraine Says 50 Killed in Rocket Strike on Rail Evacuation Hub

Ukrainian servicemen stand next to a fragment of a Tochka-U missile with a writing in Russian "For children" , on a grass after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP)
Ukrainian servicemen stand next to a fragment of a Tochka-U missile with a writing in Russian "For children" , on a grass after Russian shelling at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP)

Ukraine said at least 50 people were killed on Friday and many more wounded in a rocket strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing the threat of a major Russian offensive in the country's east.

As regional authorities scrambled to evacuate the vulnerable, European Union leaders visited Kyiv to offer President Volodymyr Zelenskiy support and assure him there would be a path to EU membership for Ukraine.

Zelenskiy called the strike on the station in Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk a deliberate attack on civilians. The town's mayor estimated that about 4,000 people were gathered there at the time.

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile containing cluster munitions, which explode in mid-air, spraying small lethal bomblets over a wider area.

"They wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible," he said, adding that evacuations by rail from the region, where Ukrainian officials are anticipating a new thrust by Russian forces, would continue.

Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.

The use of cluster munitions is banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it but has previously denied using such armaments in Ukraine.

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

Zelenskiy said no Ukrainian troops were at the station. "Russian forces (fired) on an ordinary train station, on ordinary people," he told Finland's parliament in a video address.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksander Honcharenko said some victims of the attack had lost a leg or arm. "The hospitals are carrying out about 40 operations simultaneously," he told an online briefing.

Condemnation

The White House decried the "horrific and devastating images" of the attack which EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, in Kyiv with the head of the EU executive Ursula von der Leyen, condemned on Twitter as "yet another attempt to close escape routes for those fleeing this unjustified war."

Ukrainian officials say Russia's military is regrouping after withdrawing eastwards from the zone around Kyiv, where a forensics team on Friday began exhuming a mass grave in the town of Bucha.

The grave's discovery last week galvanized the West into toughening sanctions against Russia and speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Since Russian troops pulled back from Bucha, Ukrainian officials say hundreds of dead civilians have been found there.

Visiting the town on Friday, von der Leyen said it had witnessed the "unthinkable" and that said the EU would do everything to support Ukraine in securing membership of the bloc.

Russia has called allegations that its forces executed civilians in Bucha a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating its army.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" its neighbor.

Ukraine and Western supporters call that a pretext for an unprovoked invasion that has displaced a quarter of the population and killed or injured thousands.

Ukrainian officials have in recent days urged civilians to flee eastern areas ahead of an expected attempt by Russian forces to gain full control of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, both partly held by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.

The Kremlin said on Friday the "special operation" could end in the "foreseeable future" with its aims being achieved with work by the Russian military and peace negotiators.

Russian forces have however failed to take any major cities so far, confronted by unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance and dogged by what Western intelligence officials say have been logistical, supply and morale problems.

Recovering from occupation

Kyiv has called on its allies for deliveries of more, heavier weapons needed to respond and on Thursday secured a new commitment from the NATO alliance to supply a wide range of weapons.

Britain would send Ukraine a further 100 million pounds ($130 million) of military support, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday, and defense sources in Prague said the Czech Republic had delivered tanks, rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles and would ship more.

Ukraine's military general staff said on Friday that Russian troops were focused on capturing the besieged southeastern port of Mariupol, fighting near the eastern city of Izyum and breakthroughs by Ukrainian forces near Donetsk.

Residents of areas north of Kyiv were meanwhile still coming to terms with the month-long occupation.

In the village of Yahidne, residents recounted how more than 300 people were trapped for weeks in a school basement, with names of those who did not survive or were killed by soldiers scrawled on the wall.

Reuters was not able to verify independently the villagers' accounts. Reporters saw one freshly dug grave and two bodies wrapped in white plastic sheets.

Ukraine's prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said authorities had found 650 bodies, 40 of them children, in the Kyiv region.

The West has imposed more sanctions on Russia since the images surfaced, with Washington sanctioning top Russian lenders and President Vladimir Putin's daughters, a move echoed by Britain on Friday, while the EU banned nearly 20 billion euros worth of trade, including Russian coal.

Zelenskiy has urged Brussels to also ban Russian oil and gas. Borrell said a potential oil ban would be discussed on Monday in Brussels, but called oil sanctions "a big elephant in the room" given concerns over its impact on Europe's economy and its consumers.



Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
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Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Nigeria’s president is set to make a state visit to the UK in March, the first such trip by a Nigerian leader in almost four decades, Britain’s Buckingham Palace said Sunday.

Officials said President Bola Tinubu and first lady Oluremi Tinubu will travel to the UK on March 18 and 19, The AP news reported.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host them at Windsor Castle. Full details of the visit are expected at a later date.

Charles visited Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, four times from 1990 to 2018 before he became king. He previously received Tinubu at Buckingham Palace in September 2024.m

Previous state visits by a Nigerian leader took place in 1973, 1981 and 1989.

A state visit usually starts with an official reception hosted by the king and includes a carriage procession and a state banquet.

Last year Charles hosted state visits for world leaders including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.


Iran Strikes Hard Line on US Talks, Saying Tehran's Power Comes From Saying 'No'

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Strikes Hard Line on US Talks, Saying Tehran's Power Comes From Saying 'No'

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran's top diplomat insisted Sunday that Tehran's strength came from its ability to “say no to the great powers," striking a maximalist position just after negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program and in the wake of nationwide protests.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with President Donald Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Iran will never surrender the right to enrich uranium, even if war "is imposed on us,” he noted.

"Iran has paid a very heavy price for its peaceful nuclear program and for uranium enrichment." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion, his office said.

While Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the talks Friday in Oman with the Americans as “a step forward,” Araghchi's remarks show the challenge ahead. Already, the US moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so, according to The AP news.

“I believe the secret of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s power lies in its ability to stand against bullying, domination and pressures from others," Araghchi said.

"They fear our atomic bomb, while we are not pursuing an atomic bomb. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no to the great powers. The secret of the Islamic Republic’s power is in the power to say no to the powers.”

‘Atomic bomb’ as rhetorical device Araghchi's choice to explicitly use an “atomic bomb” as a rhetorical device likely wasn't accidental. While Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Tehran had an organized military program to seek the bomb up until 2003.

Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90%, the only non-weapons state to do so. Iranian officials in recent years had also been increasingly threatening that Tehran could seek the bomb, even while its diplomats have pointed to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn’t build one.

Pezeshkian, who ordered Araghchi to pursue talks with the Americans after likely getting Khamenei's blessing, also wrote on X on Sunday about the talks.

“The Iran-US talks, held through the follow-up efforts of friendly governments in the region, were a step forward,” the president wrote. “Dialogue has always been our strategy for peaceful resolution. ... The Iranian nation has always responded to respect with respect, but it does not tolerate the language of force.”

It remains unclear when and where, or if, there will be a second round of talks. Trump, after the talks Friday, offered few details but said: “Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly — as they should.”

Aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea During Friday's talks, US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the American military's Central Command, was in Oman. Cooper's presence was apparently an intentional reminder to Iran about US military power in the region. Cooper later accompanied US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, to the Lincoln out in the Arabian Sea after the indirect negotiations.

Araghchi appeared to be taking the threat of an American military strike seriously, as many worried Iranians have in recent weeks. He noted that after multiple rounds of talks last year, the US “attacked us in the midst of negotiations."

“If you take a step back (in negotiations), it is not clear up to where it will go,” Araghchi said.

 

 


Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
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Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday that the man suspected of shooting top Russian military intelligence officer Vladimir Alexeyev in Moscow has been detained in Dubai and handed over to Russia.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of the GRU, ⁠Russia's military intelligence arm, was shot several times in an apartment block in Moscow on Friday, investigators said. He underwent surgery after the shooting, Russian media ⁠said.

The FSB said a Russian citizen named Lyubomir Korba was detained in Dubai on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, which he said was designed to sabotage peace talks. ⁠Ukraine said it had nothing to do with the shooting.

Alexeyev's boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, has been leading Russia's delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on security-related aspects of a potential peace deal.