TOP HEADLINES

• At least 50 people were killed, including five children, in a rocket attack on a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk that is being used for civilian evacuations, according to Donestsk's regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. 

• 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 did not have any targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.

• the UK is sending Ukraine more Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and 800 anti-tank missiles, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday.

• European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the deaths of civilians in Bucha showed the "cruel face" of Russian President Vladimir Putin's army, pledging to support Kyiv in its defense of the "border of Europe."

• Ukraine's southern city of Odesa imposed a weekend-long curfew on Friday over a "missile strike threat" from Russia.

• The Russian Ministry of Justice said in a statement that it had revoked the registration of 15 foreign organizations, including those of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

• Slovakia's Prime Minister Eduard Heger said the EU member had given Ukraine an S-300 air defense system, adding that it did not mean it had joined the conflict with Ukraine.

• Ukrainian investigators began to exhume a mass grave in Bucha on Friday, opening the early stages of what police say will be a war crimes case targeting Russian troops who occupied the Kyiv commuter town.

• Moscow is expelling 45 Polish diplomats, Russia's foreign ministry says, in a tit-for-tat move after Warsaw last month expelled the same number of Russian diplomats for espionage.

• Russia's inflation rate reached 16.7 percent year-on-year in March, the state statistics agency said Friday, a level not seen since 2015, while food prices have risen even more steeply.

• The destruction left by Russian troops in the town of Borodianka outside of Kyiv is "much more horrific" than the situation uncovered in the nearby town of Bucha, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. Russia has described the photographic evidence of dead bodies as fakes.

The 'cruel face' of Putin's army

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the deaths of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha showed the "cruel face" of Russian President Vladimir Putin's army, pledging to support Kyiv in its defense of the "border of Europe."

During a visit to Bucha, where forensic investigators started to exhume bodies from a mass grave, von der Leyen looked visibly moved by what she saw in a town where Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces. 

Russia denies targeting civilians in its more than six-week conflict with Ukraine and has called the allegations that Russian forces executed civilians in Bucha while they occupied the town a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating the Russian army.

Speaking to reporters in Bucha, von der Leyen said the EU would do everything to support Ukraine to do "the necessary steps" to secure membership of the bloc - a demand Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed for.

"The unthinkable has happened here. We have seen the cruel face of Putin's army. We have seen the recklessness and the cold-heartedness with which they have been occupying the city," von der Leyen told reporters in Bucha.

"The whole world is mourning with the people of Bucha, and they are the ones who are ... defending the border of Europe, defending humanity, defending democracy and therefore, we stand with them in this important fight."

IN DETAIL

Rocket strike on Kramatorsk railway station

At least 50 people were killed , including five children, and 89 were wounded in a rocket strike on a railway station in east Ukraine on Friday as civilians tried to evacuate to safer parts of the country, the state railway company said.

It said two Russian rockets had struck a station in the city of Kramatorsk, which is used for the evacuation of civilians from areas under bombardment by Russian forces.

It later added: "According to operational data, more than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the rocket attack on Kramatorsk railway station."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is an "evil with no limits" after the attack.

"They are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop," Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media after the strikes

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

The Kremlin denied that Russia was involved in the attack.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Russian armed forces had no missions scheduled for Kramatorsk on Friday.

The Russian defense ministry said the missile was of a type used only by the Ukrainian military, and similar to one that hit the center of the city of Donetsk on March 14, killing 17 people, the RIA news agency reported.

Three trains carrying evacuees were blocked in the same region of Ukraine on Thursday after an air strike on the line, according to the head of Ukrainian Railways. 

Local authorities in some areas have been urging civilians to leave while it is still possible and relatively safe to do so.

Odesa braces for 'missile strike threat'

Ukraine's southern city of Odesa imposed a weekend curfew on Friday over a "missile strike threat" from Russia after the shelling of a train station that killed dozens in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. 

"A curfew will be introduced in Odessa and Odessa region from 9 pm on April 9 to 6 am April 11," Odessa's regional military administration said on Facebook. 

The decision was taken "given events in Kramatorsk" and "threat of a missile strike on Odesa," it said. 

Ukraine has warned Russia is regrouping to launch a fresh offensive on the country's east and south after retreating from the Kyiv area. 

Last Sunday, Odessa was targeted by Russian strikes for the first time in two weeks. 

The Black Sea port and cultural hub has so far been spared the destruction seen by other Ukrainian cities.

The nearby city of Mykolaiv has suffered worse Russian attacks with a heavy civilian death toll, but Russian moves on the city have so far been rebuffed by Ukrainian forces.

Odesa, a largely Russian-speaking city that the Kremlin claims needs protection, remains vulnerable to attacks, especially from the sea.