FIGHTING

* A senior U.S. defense official said that the U.S. assessment is that “Russia did strike the train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.”

* Russia’s Defense Ministry called reports that Russia was responsible for an attack on the train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, a “provocation.”

* Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Friday called the attack on the Kramatorsk train station “deliberate slaughter.”

* Ukraine is bracing for a “massive breakthrough” attempt by Russian forces in the Donbas region.

HUMANITARIAN

* The U.N. humanitarian office is moving aid eastwards in Ukraine and plans aid convoys to the rebel regions of Luhansk and Donetsk next week as fighting shifts.

* U.N. health officials have warned that more people in Ukraine will start dying from chronic diseases and preventable illnesses than from war injuries the longer the conflict goes on.

DIPLOMACY

* The European Commission chief and the EU’s top diplomat met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Friday to offer financial and moral support.

SANCTIONS

* The European Union Friday 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.

ECONOMY

* Russian citizens are spending on average 40% of their disposable income on food – about twice as much as they did before the Russia-Ukraine war, the director of the U.N. food agency’s Russia liaison office said.

Source: Voice of America