More people need to be evacuated from the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, as shelling has increased in recent days and more Russian forces have been arriving, the region's governor has said.

Serhiy Hayday said that some 30 percent of residents still remained in cities and villages across the region and had been asked to evacuate.

Russia is "massing forces for an offensive and we see the amount of shelling has increased," Hayday told Ukrainian TV on April 9.

Ukraine has increasingly been warning that Russia plans to intensify its attacks in the country's east and south after withdrawing troops from areas to the north of the capital, Kyiv.

The United States said this week that Moscow probably plans to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

Russia was focusing its offensive, which included cruise missiles launched by its naval forces, on the eastern Donbas region, the British Defense Ministry said in a daily briefing on April 9.

It said it expected air attacks would increase in the south and east as Russia seeks to establish a land bridge between Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and the Donbas but Ukrainian forces were thwarting the advance.

Ukrainian officials said shelling had increased in the region in recent days as more Russian forces arrived.

"The occupiers continue to prepare for the offensive in the east of our country in order to establish full control over the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said on April 9.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on April 9 that 10 humanitarian corridors had been agreed for the evacuation of people across the country, including for people to leave the southern besieged port of Mariupol by private transport.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has demanded a tough global response to Russia after its forces fired a missile at a crowded train station, killing at least 52 people.

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At Least 52 Dead In Russian Rocket Attack On Ukrainian Rail Station

In his nightly address late on April 8, Zelenskiy said the strike on the train station in Kramatorsk, where 4,000 people were trying to flee a looming Russian offensive in the east, amounted to another war crime.

Russia denied it was responsible for the strike. Among those killed were five children, and dozens of people were severely injured.

Photos taken after the attack showed corpses covered with tarpaulins, and the remnants of a rocket painted with the words "for the children" in Russian.

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World leaders condemned the attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden reacted on Twitter, calling it "yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety."

The French government called it a "crime against humanity," and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described it as "unconscionable."

Train evacuations from Kramatorsk have been suspended due to the attack, Ukraine's state railway said on April 9, adding that evacuations from the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk continue from railway stations at Slovyansk, Pokrovsk, and Novozolotarivka.

With reporting from AP, Reuters, and AFP

The Supreme Court of Belarus has declared the three Telegram channels run by the Nexta news outlet a "terrorist organization," the Prosecutor-General's Office announced on April 8.

The Nexta news outlet, run from Poland, has three channels on Telegram, including Nexta Live, which has 1.4 million subscribers in a country of 9.5 million.

"The Supreme Court of Belarus, at the request of Prosecutor General Andrei Shved, recognized NEXTA as a terrorist organization," Nexta wrote on Twitter. "Terrorists win."

The ruling means any cooperation with the three Telegram channels -- Nexta, Nexta Live, and Luxta -- will entail criminal liability.

In October, the Belarusian Interior Ministry classified all three as "extremist," prohibiting their activity in the country.

Dozens of news websites have been blocked in Belarus and independent media shut down as part of a sweeping crackdown on information in the wake of unprecedented protests triggered by the August 2020 presidential election that gave authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term.

The opposition and the West say the vote was rigged to keep him in power.

Lukashenka's government has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement, arresting thousands of people and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country. The Vyasna human rights center says it considers 1,102 people to be political prisoners.

Russia has revoked the registration of 15 foreign organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The announcement came on the 44th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people and uprooted more than 11 million from their homes, causing the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

HRW has been operating in Russia for 30 years, while Amnesty has had a presence in the country since 1993.

They were taken off Russia's registry of international organizations along with 13 other foreign NGOs due to "violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation," the Justice Ministry said in a statement without providing further details.

Russia's move also effectively shut down the local offices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, and the Wspolnota Polska Association, among others.

"Human Rights Watch has been working on and in Russia since the Soviet era, and we will continue to do so," said Kenneth Roth, HRW's executive director. "This new iron curtain will not stop our ongoing efforts to defend the rights of all Russians and to protect civilians in Ukraine."

Rachel Denber, deputy director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia division, said there was little doubt the move was in response to the organization's reporting on Russia's offensive in Ukraine.

"The Russian government had already made it abundantly clear that it has no use for any facts, regarding the protection of civilians in Ukraine. This is just one small further proof of that," Denber said in a statement to AFP.

Denber, who previously directed the watchdog's Moscow office, said HRW would continue to work on Russia.

"HRW has been working on Russia since the Soviet era, when it was a closed totalitarian state," she added. "We found ways of documenting human rights abuses then, and we will do so in the future."

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Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said her organization would also continue to support Russians.

"We will redouble our efforts to expose Russia's egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad," she said in a statement. "You must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up," Callamard added.

Germany’s Heinrich-Boll Foundation, which has close ties to Germany's Green Party and promotes democracy in Russia, was also affected.

"Unfortunately, the Russian government under President [Vladimir] Putin has pulled this country in the opposite direction for many years," the foundation said in a statement.

Over the past year Russian authorities have been presiding over an unprecedented crackdown on dissent and independent journalism that has included dubbing nongovernmental organizations and media outlets as "foreign agents."

The Justice Ministry also designated six more people "foreign agents," including popular rapper Face, or Ivan Dremin, who has spoken out against Russia's military campaign in Ukraine and left the country in protest.

The other five are lawyer Mark Feygin, Novaya gazeta journalist Irina Tumakova, Idel.Realii journalist Yekaterina Mayakovskaya, writer Andrei Filimonov, and associate professor Dmitry Dubrovsky.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and dpa

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended Germany against criticism that it is dragging its feet on ending Russian energy imports, saying Berlin is “actively working” to free itself from importing Russian gas.

"We are doing all we can and we are doing a lot," Scholz said in London on April 8, pointing to Germany's long-term diversification to alternative energy and its move to other suppliers for natural gas.

Germany has been under pressure to do more to reduce Russian energy imports, particularly since evidence of what Ukraine and many Western government have said shows that war crimes were committed by Russian forces as they withdrew from towns around Kyiv.

"We are actively working to get independent from the import of [Russian] oil and we think that we will be able to make it during this year," Scholz said during a news conference with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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Russian oil now accounts for 25 percent of German imports, down from 35 percent before the invasion, and gas imports have been cut to 40 percent from 55 percent before the invasion. Russian hard coal imports are down to 25 percent from 50 percent before the invasion.

However, the goal to cut the share of Russian natural gas imports to 24 percent by this summer could take until the summer of 2024, Scholz said.

"This is, as you may imagine, not that easy because it needs infrastructure that has to be built first. So pipelines to the northern shore of Germany, regasification ports that make it possible for example that LNG ships could give their supply to the gas grid in Germany," he said, using the acronym for liquefied natural gas.

Johnson told reporters that Britain is sending Ukraine more anti-aircraft missiles and 800 anti-tank missiles worth 100 million pounds ($130 million).

The two leaders also commented on an attack on a train station in Kramatorsk that killed at least 50 people, including five children, according to Ukrainian officials.

The attack "shows the depths to which [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's once-vaunted army has sunk," he said alongside Scholz, who called the Russian strike "atrocious."

Johnson also said Britain and Germany would work together on renewable technologies.

"We cannot transform our energy systems overnight, but we also know that Putin's war will not end overnight," the prime minister said.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

MOSCOW -- Russia has declared the British think tank Chatham House an "undesirable" organization amid its ongoing crackdown on international and domestic NGOs, media, and democratic institutions.

In its April 8 statement, the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office gave a standard explanation for the move, saying that the organization’s activities pose “a threat to the Russian Federation's constitutional order and security."

The move was initiated by a commission of the Russian parliament‘s lower chamber, the State Duma, which asked the Prosecutor-General’s Office to add 14 international NGOs of Poland, Germany, and Britain, including Chatham House, to the list of undesirable organizations.

The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in 2015, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that squeezed many nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that received funding from foreign sources.

Chatham House, officially known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a more than century-old research institute based in London focused on international affairs.

Russia's Foreign Ministry says it is expelling Bulgarian and Polish diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after Sofia and Warsaw sent home Russian diplomats last month.

Russia has declared two Bulgarian diplomats and 45 Polish embassy and consulate staff "persona non grata" in retaliation for the equivalent number of expulsions from the two countries.

"This measure is a response to the Bulgarian side's unmotivated decision in March this year to declare 'personae non grata' two diplomats of the Russian Embassy in Sofia," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on April 8.

A separate Foreign Ministry statement announced the expulsion of the 45 Polish diplomats. Poland said in March that they were suspected of working for Russian intelligence.

The Russia Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Polish ambassador in Moscow to "strongly protest against the unjustified" expulsion of Russian diplomats from Poland on March 23.

"The ambassador was told that we regard this step as confirmation of Warsaw's conscious desire to completely destroy bilateral relations," the ministry added. "The blame for that lies wholly with the Polish side."

On March 2, Bulgaria said it was expelling two Russians for "unauthorized spying activities incompatible with their diplomatic status."

Two weeks later, Sofia announced the further expulsion of another 10 Russian diplomats, saying they were carrying out activities deemed incompatible with their diplomatic status.

The Bulgarian government didn't give a more detailed reason for the expulsions, but since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Russian ambassador in Sofia had repeatedly made contradictory statements about Bulgaria's position on the conflict.

Countries across Europe this week ordered another wave of expulsions, with more than 200 Russian diplomats being given orders to return home since April 4 in a continued response to Moscow's unprovoked war against Ukraine.

More than 100 had already been thrown out since the beginning of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Finland announced on April 8 that it will expel two Russia diplomats and deny a visa extension to a third.

"The measure is in line with those taken by other EU member states," the Finnish prime minister's office said in a statement on April 8.

BISHKEK -- Former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev has been removed from the courtroom after he started kicking at the glass cage he was placed in during his trial on a charge of attempting to seize power during anti-government protests in October 2020.

The judge of the Birinchi Mai district court ordered bailiffs to remove Atambaev from the courtroom for "deliberately disrupting order in the courtroom." He later adjourned the trial until April 11.

Atambaev started shouting during the court hearing on April 8, saying that he has a medical condition and should not be present at the process, striking out with his leg several times.

Four days earlier, Atambaev said he felt sick, and the trial was adjourned after an ambulance arrived at the court to take the former president to receive medical care.

On April 5, Atambaev said he felt better but refused to testify at the trial.

The charge against Atambaev stems from his participation in anti-government rallies in October 2020 that were sparked by controversial parliamentary elections seen by many as rigged.

In the wake of the protests, Atambaev, who was then serving an 11-year prison term he was handed earlier that year for his role in the illegal release of a notorious crime boss, Aziz Batukaev, in 2013, was shortly released and along with several other politicians joined the protests. He was later rearrested.

The 65-year-old Atambaev, who denies any wrongdoing, was arrested in August 2019 after he surrendered to police following a deadly two-day standoff between security forces and his supporters.

The move to detain Atambaev was sparked by his refusal to obey three summons to appear at the Interior Ministry for questioning about Batukaev’s release.

The standoff between security forces and his supporters resulted in the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injuries -- 79 of them sustained by law enforcement officers.

Atambaev's other trial linked to the 2019 violence is also currently taking place as well. He and 13 others are charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of the authorities, hostage-taking, and the forcible seizure of power.

Russia brewers are asking the country's Agriculture Ministry to help them find a way to replace imported hops over the next few years as they fear shortages.

According to a report in the Russian daily Kommersant on April 8, Russian-owned breweries import 98 percent of the 7,000–7,500 metric tons of hops every year, mainly from Germany, the Czech Republic, and the United States.

Russia's domestic brewers could also face higher demand as European rivals Carlsberg and Heineken have announced plans to exit the Russian market.

Most Russian-owned firms had enough hops to last them a few months, but would run into serious problems in summer if supplies were disrupted, the Russian Union of Brewers said in a letter seen by Kommersant.

The union asked the government to support the establishment of local production, although the process is likely to take some time.

The Association of Russian Hops Producers estimates that it would need more than 500 million rubles ($6.4 million) in annual state subsidies for three to five years to increase production to 1,000 metric tons by 2030, the newspaper said.

Based on reporting by Reuters

A Ukrainian hacker who was part of a notorious cybercrime group that stole millions of credit-card records has been sentenced in Seattle to five years in prison.

Denys Iarmak, 32, is the third member of the hacking group FIN7 to be sentenced. He was arrested in Bangkok in November 2019 at the request of U.S. investigators and extradited to the United States.

He pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez sentenced him on April 7, saying there was "some irony" that the group plundered the United States, which is now supporting Ukraine amid Russia's invasion.

FIN7 engaged in phishing scams to breach the computer networks and point-of-sale terminals of about 3,600 business locations in all 50 states since at least 2015, according to prosecutors.

FIN7 used e-mails that appeared to be legitimate and follow-up phone calls in targeting people working at hotels, casinos, and restaurants.

Once the victims opened attachments in the e-mails, FIN7 would use malware to access financial information that the gang would then sell or use in other illicit ways.

"Iarmak and his conspirators compromised millions of financial accounts, causing over a billion dollars in losses to Americans and costs to America's economy," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in a news release.

FIN7 member Fedir Hladyr was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison, and another co-conspirator, Andriy Kolpakov, received seven years.

Hladyr confessed to serving as a manager and systems administrator for FIN7 and agreed to pay $2.5 million in restitution. Kolpakov pleaded guilty to wire-fraud and computer-hacking charges and was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

U.S. President Joe Biden has thanked Slovakia for donating its Soviet-era S-300 air-defense system to Ukraine and said it will be replaced with a U.S.-made Patriot system.

Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has raised the need to transfer such systems to Ukraine.

"To enable this transfer and ensure the continued security of Slovakia, the United States will reposition a U.S. Patriot missile system to Slovakia," he said in a statement on April 8.

Biden said that while the Russian military “may have failed in its objective of capturing Kyiv,” it continues to inflict “horrific acts of brutality on the Ukrainian people."

Prime Minister Eduard Heger said earlier that Slovakia would donate its Soviet-era S-300 air-defense system to Ukraine. Heger announced the donation as he visited Kyiv with top EU officials ahead of a meeting with Zelenskiy.

Zelenskiy mentioned S-300s by name when he spoke to U.S. lawmakers by video last month, appealing for defense systems that would allow Ukraine to “close the skies” to Russian warplanes and missiles.

NATO members Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Greece have the S-300s, which can fire missiles hundreds of kilometers and knock out cruise missiles as well as warplanes.

NATO allies Germany and Netherlands last month sent three batteries of the Patriot air-defense system to Slovakia, which Bratislava said would complement rather than replace the S-300. But it said it was willing to give its S-300 to Ukraine on condition that it has a proper replacement.

The Patriot system and a team of U.S. soldiers will arrive in Slovakia in the coming days, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. The length of the U.S. soldiers’ deployment has not been set, Austin said in a statement.

“I salute the generosity of the Slovak government in providing an S-300 air-defense system -- a critical defensive capability -- to Ukraine,” Austin said in the statement. “It’s a strong testament to how determined Ukraine’s neighbors are to help the Ukrainians defend themselves against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of their homeland.”

He said the move “aligns perfectly” with previous efforts to bolster NATO’s defensive capabilities.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

A court in Argentina has handed lengthy prison terms to two Russian-born men convicted in an operation that uncovered almost 400 kilograms of cocaine on the premises of the Russian Embassy in Argentina in December 2016.

The Buenos Aires city court on April 7 sentenced 39-year-old Ivan Bliznyuk to seven years and seven months in prison, and 45-year-old Aleksandr Chikalo to six years in prison after finding them guilty of being members of an international criminal group that bought almost 400 kilograms of cocaine at a cost of $3 million in Argentina in 2016.

They planned to transport the drugs to Russia, where they had a street value of $39 million at the time.

Bliznyuk and Chikalo, who have lived in Argentina for more than 20 years, rejected the charge, insisting that they had nothing to do with the drugs.

In January, a court in Moscow sentenced four other men involved in the high-profile case to lengthy prison terms.

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Andrei Kovalchuk, whom investigators called the mastermind of the operation, was handed an 18-year prison term, while businessmen Ishtimir Khudzhamov and Vladimir Kalmykov and a former employee of the Russian Embassy in Argentina, Ali Abyanov, were sentenced to 13 years, 16 years, and 17 years in prison, respectively.

None of the defendants is or was a diplomat.

MOSCOW -- Funeral services have been held for Russian ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died this week at the age of 75 after a prolonged illness.

A Mass at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior was held for the firebrand politician on April 8, after which an open-casket ceremony was held in the historic House of the Unions, where Joseph Stalin lay in state in 1953.

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In a rare public appearance since Russia launched its unprovoked war against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin laid a bouquet of red roses near the coffin and bowed his head for a moment of silence for Zhirinovsky, who was once a foe but later was seen as part of the "systemic opposition" that Putin used to advance his goals while keeping up the appearance of democracy and pluralism.

The Kazakhstan-born Zhirinovsky, known for his nationalist and often outlandish rhetoric, ran for president five times but never received a double-digit share of the vote.

In one of his last public statements, he suggested on national television in late December 2021 that the Russian military bomb Ukraine on New Year's Eve.

In the 1990s he advocated using nuclear weapons against Russia's Chechnya region at the start of the Second Chechen War.

He has also called for forcibly retaking Alaska from the United States and for restoring Moscow's control over former Soviet states and the incorporation of Kazakhstan into Russia.

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No details on the cause of death was given, but Zhirinovsky had been in a Moscow hospital since early February after testing positive for COVID-19 and developing pneumonia.

With reporting by RIA Novosti

OSKEMEN, Kazakhstan -- Sixteen men arrested in the northeastern Kazakh city of Oskemen during deadly anti-government demonstrations that shook the country in January have launched a hunger strike to protest the conditions they are held in and a court's decision to extend their pretrial detention.

Anar Qusaiynova, a lawyer representing them, told RFE/RL late on April 7 that the 16 detained men had started their hunger strike the day before.

According to Qusaiynova, the men are demanding to be transferred to house arrest and their cases brought to court quickly.

Nazira Zhylqyshynova, the mother of 24-year-old dentist Nursultan Sultanov, one of those detained and on hunger strike, told RFE/RL that the conditions in the city's central detention center, which is situated in an 18th-century fortress, were "horrible."

"I visited the place to see my son. It's very damp and humid inside. It's probably dangerous for anyone's health. We demand that our sons be released. They have families, mortgages. They will not go anywhere before the trial," Zhylqyshynova said.

Relatives of another man on hunger strike, Semei Ismaghambetov, told RFE/RL that all 16 men were being kept in one cell.

State Penitentiary Service officials told RFE/RL that they were "unaware of any hunger strike" in Oskemen.

Protests in the remote town of Zhanaozen in Kazakhstan's southwest over a sudden fuel-price hike in early January quickly spread across the country and led to violent clashes.

President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev called on the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to send troops to Kazakhstan in the wake of the protests, which were also directed at former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who resigned in 2019 but retained large political influence in the tightly controlled nation with almost limitless powers.

Kazakh authorities say at least 230 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, were killed during the violence, but human rights groups say the number of those killed was much higher, pointing to evidence that there were peaceful demonstrators and people who had nothing to do with the protests among those killed by law enforcement and military personnel.

The authorities say some 800 people have been arrested over the unrest and dozens have been sentenced to various prison terms. There are reports that those in custody have been tortured by the police.

A stabbing attack at a revered shrine in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad has claimed the life of a second Shi'ite cleric, state television reports.

The death of Mohammad Sadegh Daraei was reported as thousands of mourners attended the funeral of another cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Aslani, killed in the same attack.

Daraei was seriously wounded in the April 5 attack at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad. He died at a hospital after undergoing several operations that failed to save him.

A third cleric wounded in the attack is still in danger, the medical team has said.

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on April 7 described the incident as a "terrorist operation" and said Tehran would pursue the perpetrators. Vahidi said the attack showed that Iran's enemies are still working to promote "discord."

Authorities have said the suspected perpetrator is a 21-year-old man of Uzbek descent, while blaming the attack on the influence of "takfiri" -- a term used for Sunni extremists, including the Islamic State (IS) group.

They have described religious animosity toward Iran's Shi'ite majority as the motive for the attack.

The suspected attacker and six other accomplices have been arrested. At least one is reported to be the brother of the attacker.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency identified the suspect as Abdolatif Moradi and said he had entered Iran a year ago illegally via the border with Pakistan. According to the report, Moradi lived in Mashhad, where he worked "in transport" with his brother.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has called on the Intelligence Ministry to identify and prosecute all perpetrators of the attack.

With reporting by AFP

MINSK -- Belarusian journalist Katsyaryna Andreyeva, who is serving a two-year prison sentence for covering protests against authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has now been charged with high treason just ahead of her release.

Andreyeva's husband, Ihar Ilyash, wrote on Facebook on April 7 that it remains unclear what the charge is based on, adding that the investigations into what he called "an absurd" case had been finished and the case will be soon handed to a court.

"Just five months before the end of her prison term, all of a sudden, they charge her again, this time with 'high treason.' In a country engulfed with totalitarian insanity, this cannot have anything to do with law and reality. But there is obvious parallel with Stalin's practices -- to extend a political prisoner's term, when it approaches its end," Ilyash wrote, adding that his wife "is absolutely innocent."

"The cynical nature of this probe is a monstrous retaliation against someone for their journalistic activities," he adds.

Andreyeva and her colleague, Darya Chultsova, were both sentenced to two years in prison in February 2021 after a court found them guilty of "organizing public events aimed at disrupting civil order."

Andreyeva, 28, and Chultsova, 24, in their last statement in the courtroom, rejected the charge against them, calling them politically motivated, as they attended the protest to do their job as reporters.

The two journalists were arrested in mid-November 2020 while they were covering a rally in Minsk commemorating Raman Bandarenka.

Bandarenka died from injuries sustained in a vicious beating by a group of masked assailants -- who rights activists say were affiliated with the authorities -- during one of the weekly rallies demanding Lukashenka's resignation after he claimed victory in an August 2020 presidential election that the opposition says was rigged.

Belarusian and international human rights organizations have recognized Andreyeva and Chultsova as political prisoners and say that all charges should be dropped and they should be released immediately.

Security officials have cracked down hard on any dissent against Lukashenka's regime, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture by security officials of some of those detained.

Lukashenka, who has run the country with a tight grip since 1994, has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka, 67, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the "falsification" of the vote and the brutal postelection crackdown.

The European Union has agreed on a fifth package of sanctions against Russia for its unprovoked war against Ukraine, including measures banning the import of coal and closing off EU ports from Russian vessels.

"Together with the four previous packages, these sanctions will further contribute to ramping up economic pressure on the Kremlin and cripple its ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine," the bloc said in a statement on April 8.

"These measures are broader and sharper, so that they cut even deeper into the Russian economy. They have been coordinated with international partners," it added, noting that work on further sanctions against Moscow is already under way.

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The newly adopted sanctions target six main themes: Russian coal, financial transactions, transport, imports and exports to Russia, and excluding Russia from public contracts and European funds.

Meanwhile, an update to Britain's sanctions list announced asset freezes on Putin's adult daughters Yekaterina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, as well as Yekaterina Vinokurova, the daughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. All three were placed under sanctions by the United States earlier this week.

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"Our unprecedented package of sanctions is hitting the elite and their families, while degrading the Russian economy on a scale Russia hasn’t seen since the fall of the Soviet Union," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

Britain also said its analysis showed Russia is heading for the deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Britain estimates that 60 percent of Russian foreign-currency reserves have been frozen as a result of international sanctions.

The United States and its European allies have been slapping sanctions on Russia, which launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, to isolate Moscow economically, financially, and diplomatically.

The latest sanctions come as evidence of atrocities committed by Russian troops continues to pile up.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the UN Security Council on April 5 that Russian troops had committed some of the worst "war crimes" since World War II and urged the council to hold them accountable.

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That led to the United Nations General Assembly voting on April 7 to suspend Russia from the UN's Human Rights Council, only the second time ever such a move has been taken.

Much of the focus has been on Bucha, a town near Kyiv where Russian forces were positioned until their withdrawal late last week. People there said they witnessed brutal killings and torture, and evidence has emerged of mass graves and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.

On April 8, Russian rockets struck a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 30 people and wounding more than 100.

Ukrainian leaders have predicted more gruesome discoveries would be made in reclaimed cities and towns after retreating Russian forces left behind crushed buildings and streets strewn with destroyed cars and the corpses of civilians.

Ukraine and its allies have blamed Russia for a missile attack that killed at least 52 people at a train station in eastern Ukraine in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was a deliberate attack on civilians.

Ukraine's state railway company said two Russian rockets struck the station on April 8 in Kramatorsk, which was being used to evacuate civilians from areas that are expected to come under heavy attack as Moscow redirects its war efforts to focus on eastern areas where the separatists it has backed since 2014 have been fighting Ukrainian troops.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said late on April 8 that the number of deaths had risen to 52.

Kyrylenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile containing cluster munitions that explode in midair, spraying small bomblets over a wider area. The claim could not be verified.

The Russian Defense Ministry and the Kremlin denied Russia was responsible for the attack. The ministry was quoted by the RIA Novosti 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 April 8.

"We expect a firm global response to this war crime," Zelenskiy said in a speech posted on Facebook.

World leaders condemned the attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden reacted on Twitter, calling the attack "yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety."

The French government called it a "crime against humanity," and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described it as "unconscionable."

"This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop," Zelenskiy said in a statement.

Zelenskiy reported that 300 people were injured, saying that no Ukrainian troops were at the station. In a video address to Finland's parliament, he said Europe cannot offer a "partial response" to Russia and its aggression "because freedom will not survive if we leave the channels of tyranny."

Video and images recorded by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service showed dozens of dead civilians next to backpacks and suitcases they were carrying with them.

"The Russians are deliberately trying to disrupt the evacuation of civilians…. For them, people's lives are just a bargaining chip and an instrument to achieve their cynical goal," Kyrylenko said.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said about 4,000 people were at the station at the time of the attack. He told an online briefing that some victims had lost legs or arms.

WATCH: A child's blood-spattered toy, suitcases, and charred cars littered the railway station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on April 8 after a Russian rocket attack that struck when around 1,000 people were waiting for a train to evacuate them to a safer part of the country.

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Bloodstained Wreckage Litters Ukrainian Railway Station After Russian Attack

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The remains of a large rocket with the words "for our children" in Russian was lying just adjacent to the main train station building.

Referring to that message, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a Kyiv news conference: "The cynical behavior has almost no benchmark anymore.... It is unbelievable."

The attack came as von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, and Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger were in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskiy.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

The war in Ukraine is a test of whether the European Parliament can show courage and leadership and act as a strong defender of democracy, the legislature's president, Roberta Metsola, has told RFE/RL's Georgian Service.

In the wide-ranging interview on April 7, Metsola challenged the European Union to step up now and do more for Ukraine, which for years has looked to the West and aspired to join democratic institutions.

"We need to make a choice. We are either going to save Ukraine or turn our backs and if we turn our back to Ukraine, that means we turned our backs to a country that looked up to us as the democratic leader, as a global political power stands for freedom around the world," Metsola said.

Metsola, a Maltese politician who has been president of the European Parliament since January, said it was clear that after her recent visit to Kyiv, the country doesn't just need more military equipment, it needs weapons that its troops already know how to use to ensure they are quickly put to use.

Europe's response, she added, should be increased in ways such as how the Czech Republic on April 5 sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.

The amount the EU has pledged thus far -- 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in financial assistance -- was unprecedented, she said, but "Ukraine needs to survive. We need to help, make sure that Ukraine wins this war because otherwise all of Europe would fail."

The current level of political will was also unprecedented, she said, noting there was "huge public opinion" behind it that allows the EU to go further than it's gone before, not just on defense spending but also on energy policy.

She called for stronger embargoes on more energy sources from Russia, with the ultimate aim of zero energy dependence on the Kremlin because "we need to buy our energy from our friends and not from our foes."

While she understands that there are different realities in different countries as prices rise, the EU is going into an uncertain period in terms of supply and food shortages. She said the turbulence meant leadership will become even more valuable.

"This is where political will has to be at the forefront of all decisions that are taken, be a political, economic, financial, whatever is needed," she said.

"We need to make a choice -- we are either going to save Ukraine or turn our backs. And this is where I think we as a European Parliament and I president should be at the forefront -- fighting for the first option."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Georgian Service

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has told Ukraine the European Union is by its side and will continue to support Kyiv by making Russian President Vladimir Putin pay a "heavy price" for his war.

Von der Leyen on April 8 became the first European leader to visit Bucha, where earlier this week evidence of possible war crimes was found in the wake of a retreat by Russian troops who had controlled the Kyiv suburb for several weeks after Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion on February 24.

SEE ALSO:

At Least 52 Dead In Russian Rocket Attack On Ukrainian Rail Station

After touring the area, where dozens of bodies were found strewn about the streets, some with their hands tied behind their backs, along with mass graves, and the destruction of much of the town's infrastructure, von der Leyen lit candles in a church for the victims.

"It was important to start my visit in Bucha. Because in Bucha our humanity was shattered," she said in a tweet. "My message to Ukrainian people: Those responsible for the atrocities will be brought to justice. Your fight is our fight."

Afterward, she held a briefing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which she pledged to speed up Kyiv's bid to join the EU, handing him a questionnaire to launch the process.

"It will not as usual be a matter of years to form this opinion [on membership], but I think a matter of weeks," she said, pledging to keep up the economic and diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

"Russia will descend into economic, financial, and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards the European future. This is what I see," von der Leyen said.

Russia has denied it committed any atrocities in Bucha.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, and Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger arrived in Kyiv on April 8 for talks with Zelenskiy. The three European leaders set off by train from the small southern Polish town of Przemysl, just 13 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The airspace over Ukraine is closed because of the war.

In mid-March the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic traveled to Kyiv by train. Last week, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola visited the city.

The West has tightened sanctions on Russia following international condemnation of apparent executions of civilians in the streets of Bucha, a northern suburb of Kyiv.

Local officials say more than 300 people were killed by Russian forces in Bucha, and around 50 of them were executed. Moscow denies the accusations.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said a war crimes tribunal against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov should be established amid the growing evidence of alleged atrocities.

Speaking in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel published on April 8, Steinmeier said that "anyone who has responsibility for these crimes will have to explain themselves."

"That includes soldiers. That includes military commanders. And of course also those that have the political responsibility," he added.

Zelenskiy said late on April 7 that the situation in Borodyanka -- another town northwest of Kyiv retaken from Russian forces -- is "significantly more dreadful" than in Bucha.

Video from Borodyanka showed search-and-rescue teams using heavy equipment to dig through the rubble of a building that collapsed. Hundreds of people were feared buried.

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Borodyanka's Survivors Tell Their Stories After Ukrainian Town's Liberation

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On the battlefield, Ukraine says after withdrawing from Kyiv's outskirts, Russia is regrouping to try to gain full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been partly held by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014.

The besieged southern port of Mariupol, where the mayor said over 100,000 people were still trapped, was also a target.

The British Defense Ministry said on April 8 that Russian shelling of cities in the east and south continues and Russian forces have advanced further south from the city of Izyum, which remains under their control.

Ukraine said it aimed to establish up to 10 humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians on April 8, but civilians trying to flee besieged Mariupol will have to use private vehicles.

The 10 planned safe corridors announced by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk were all in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told BBC radio that NATO countries were ready to supply weapons to Ukraine for the fight against Russia for years to come, if necessary.

He said he could not comment on weapons systems supplied by individual NATO countries, but said that the impact of the weapons that had already been delivered to Ukraine was clear to see.

"Allies are ready to provide even more and also more modern and heavier weapons," he said.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa, and Bild

Microsoft Corp says it has disrupted hacking attempts by Russian military spies aimed at breaking into Ukrainian, European Union, and U.S. targets.

In a blog post on April 7, the tech firm said a group it nicknamed "Strontium" was using seven Internet domains as part of an effort to spy on government bodies and think tanks in the EU and the United States, as well as Ukrainian institutions such as media organizations.

Microsoft did not disclose by name any of the targets.

Strontium is Microsoft's moniker for a group others often call Fancy Bear or APT28 -- a hacking squad linked to Russia's military intelligence agency.

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message from Reuters seeking comment.

Ukraine has been targeted by hacking attempts since Russian forces invaded the country in February.

With reporting by Reuters

The British rock band Pink Floyd has released its first new music in almost three decades to raise money for humanitarian relief in Ukraine, featuring the vocals of a Ukrainian singer who quit an international tour to fight for his country and was wounded.

Hey Hey Rise Up features Pink Floyd members David Gilmour and Nick Mason, with vocals from Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the band BoomBox.

The track features Khlyvnyuk singing a patriotic Ukrainian song from a clip he recorded in front of Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral and posted on social media.

Gilmour, who performed with BoomBox in London in 2015, said the video was "a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music."

After Russia's invasion, Khlyvnyuk cut short a tour of the United States to return to Ukraine and join a territorial defense unit.

Gilmour said he spoke to Khlyvnyuk, who was recovering in a hospital from a mortar shrapnel injury, while he was writing the song.

He said: "I played him a little bit of the song down the phone line and he gave me his blessing. We both hope to do something together in person in the future."

Gilmour said he had a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren and he was feeling "the fury and the frustration" of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

"We want to express our support for Ukraine, and in that way show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become," Gilmour said on the band's website.

Pink Floyd said all the proceeds from the track, which samples Khlyvnyuk singing a World War I protest song, will go to the Ukraine Humanitarian Relief Fund.

Pink Floyd, founded in London in the mid-1960s, is best known for their influential 1970s albums including The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall.

Original member Roger Waters quit in 1985, and the remaining members of Pink Floyd last recorded together for the 1994 album The Division Bell. After keyboard player Richard Wright died in 2008, Gilmour said he doubted Pink Floyd would perform together again.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

The U.S. Congress has voted overwhelmingly to remove favorable trade status for goods from Russia and Belarus and to ban the import of Russian oil and other energy products.

In a rare display of unity, the Senate passed both bills unanimously. The House of Representatives passed the bills with huge majorities -- 420-3 on the trade bill and 413-9 on the oil embargo legislation -- clearing the way for the bills to be sent to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign them into law.

The trade legislation relegates Russia and Belarus into a group with Cuba and North Korea as the only countries denied most-favored-nation status -- also known as permanent normal trade relations -- by the United States.

The status requires countries to guarantee one another equal tariff and regulatory treatment. Ending it for Russian and Belarusian products will mean higher tariffs on those products in the U.S. market.

The United States imported just under $30 billion in goods from Russia last year, including $17.5 billion in crude oil.

The energy measure puts into law Biden's previous executive order banning imports of Russian oil, natural gas, coal, and other petroleum products.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York) said the legislation delivers a "painful, severe" financial blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine and overseeing alleged war crimes against civilians.

"Putin must absolutely be held accountable for the detestable, despicable war crimes he is committing against Ukraine: the images we have seen coming out of that country...are just pure evil," Schumer said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) hailed the latest action as a sign that the United States was "unwavering" in its commitment to support Ukraine and hold Russia to account.

"Putin's aggression and barbaric war crimes have horrified the world and demand a strong response," she said in a statement.

The trade legislation directs the U.S. Trade Representative's Office to work to persuade other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend most-favored-nation status for Russia, work to get the WTO to suspend Russia's membership, and work to block Belarus's entry into the WTO.

With reporting by AFP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington will not let anything stand in the way of sending Ukraine more of the weapons it needs in its fight against Russia.

Speaking to reporters on April 7 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken said the United States is looking at what new weapons it can send to Ukraine. He said there’s a greater determination than ever to stand with Ukraine.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Blinken also said Russia must decide if it wants to engage in meaningful diplomacy with Ukraine.

Blinken said the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha are not a major factor in peace talks but said it is likely that Russian forces are carrying out more "atrocities" in parts of Ukraine.

"For every Bucha, there are many more towns Russia has occupied and more towns that it is still occupying, places where we must assume Russian soldiers are committing more atrocities right now," Blinken said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba earlier on April 7 pressed NATO for more weapons amid expectations that Russia is repositioning its forces before launching a major offensive in southeastern Ukraine.

The best way to help Ukraine is to provide the country with everything it needs to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place and defeat the Russian Army, Kuleba said.

Kuleba said he expects his country will be supplied by NATO with all of the weapons it needs to defend itself, but he said the outstanding question is when the arms would arrive.

“The discussion is not about the list of weapons. The discussion is about the timeline,” he said, adding that the more weapons Ukraine gets and the sooner they arrive, the more human lives will be saved.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

Italian media say unknown activists have vandalized two villas in Italy that belong to leading pro-Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported on April 7 that unknown individuals threw red paint into the swimming pool at Solovyov's villa in Pianello del Lario near Lake Como.

Walls also were splashed with red paint with the words "Killer" and "No War" scrawled on the villa's entrance.

Separately, unknown persons tried to set fire to another villa belonging to Solovyov in the nearby town of Menaggio. Firefighters were called to extinguish the fire, Italian media reported.

The mayor of Menaggio, Michele Spaggiari, said that Solovyov was last in the villa in the summer of 2021.

Italian authorities impounded all of Solovyov’s villas and other properties in the country in early March as part of international sanctions imposed on those seen as close to Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24.