Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says democratic countries are united in working to stop the Russian invasion as civilians continued to flee eastern parts of the country
A man with a bicycle walks in front of a destroyed apartment building in the town of Borodyanka, Ukraine, on Saturday, April 9, 2022. Russian troops occupied the town of Borodyanka for weeks. Several apartment buildings were destroyed during fighting between the Russian troops and the Ukrainian forces in the town around 40 miles northwest of Kiev.
“Freedom does not have time to wait,” Zelenskyy said."When tyranny begins its aggression against everything that keeps the peace in Europe, action must be taken immediately." Ukrainian authorities have called on civilians to get out ahead of an imminent, stepped-up offensive by Russian forces in the east. With trains not running out of Kramatorsk on Saturday, panicked residents boarded buses or looked for other ways to leave, fearing the kind of unrelenting assaults and occupations by Russian invaders that brought food shortages, demolished buildings and death to other cities.
Russia denied responsibility and accused Ukraine’s military of firing on the station to turn blame for civilian casualties on Moscow. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman detailed the missile’s trajectory and Ukrainian troop positions to bolster the argument. Workers unearthed 67 corpses Friday from a mass grave near a church, according to Ukraine's prosecutor general. Russia has falsely claimed that the scenes in Bucha were staged.
Ukrainian authorities have said they expect to find more mass killings once they reach the southern port city of Mariupol, which is also in the Donbas and has been subjected to a monthlong blockade and intense fighting. The city’s location on the Sea of Azov is critical to establishing a land bridge from the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine eight years ago.