{O/C} The death toll from the deadly missile attack on a train station in eastern Ukraine has risen to 52 and more than 100 were injured.
Amid a looming Russian offensive, Ukraine's leader is all for a tough and united global response to Russia.
{Take SOT}
Irony today as the deceased, including children, wrapped in tarps, and the remnants of a rocket painted with the words "For the children" lay side by side.
Sheer horror grievously gripped residents in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine as the horrific death toll from the latest missile attack on a train station swelled to at least 52, with more than 100 wounded.
The attack wreaked havoc on the area where some 4,000 civilians heeded calls to leave prior to the looming attack on the Donbas region.
But when push comes to shove, a volcanic eruption of wrath as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded a determined global response to Russia in his late night video address to the nation. He also vowed to get to the bottom of the strike.
The injured are pouring into area hospitals, with some needing amputation or having lost their arms or legs.
Having inspected the mass grave, the EU Commission President was lost for words.
{Soundbite} URSULA VON DER LEYEN, European Union Commission President: The unthinkable has happened here. We have seen the cruel face of Putin' army. We have seen the recklessness and cold-heartedness.
Kiev accused Moscow of passing the buck. But Russia and its rebels hit back.
Meantime, Bucha's mayor said workers had exhumed around 67 corpses buried in a mass grave near a church, and that there were so far three sites where mass shootings of civilians had taken place.
Encumbered by unrelenting resistance, Russian forces are now trying to trample on the Donbas region, where pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainians have been facing-off for eight years.
Keeping the pot boiling, Ukrainian troops have promised not to hand the region to the Russians on a plate.
Elsewhere, in anticipation of escalated Russian attacks, hundreds are fleeing their homes in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson.
Knowing NATO members wouldn't touch the Russian attacks with a barge pole, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly requested additional materiel as well as stiff punitive sanctions against Russia.
In the thick of the chaotic war, some 4 million were rendered refugees, with countless more displaced.
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