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The attackers may have broken into the electrical companys systems as early as February, Ukrainian officials said, but they emphasized that some details of the attack, including how the intruders made their way into the companys systems, were not yet known.

Officials declined to name the company that suffered the breach and the region its substations are in, citing fears of continuing cyberattacks.

It is self-evident that the aggressors team, the malefactors, had enough time to get prepared very thoroughly and they planned the execution on a sophisticated, high-quality level, said Victor Zhora, the deputy head of Ukraines cybersecurity agency, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection. It looks that we have been very lucky that we were able to respond in a timely manner to this cyberattack.

Ukrainian companies in finance, media and energy have been subject to regular cyberattacks since the war began, according to Mr. Zhora. His agency said that since Russias invasion began, it had recorded three times as many attacks as it had tracked in the previous year.

The use of wiper malware has become a persistent problem in Ukraine since the war began, with attacks hitting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, including government agencies responsible for food safety, finance and law enforcement, cybersecurity researchers said.

Hackers have also broken into communications systems, including satellite communication services and telecom companies. Investigations into those breaches are continuing, although cybersecurity analysts and U.S. officials believe Russia is responsible. Other hacking groups, including one affiliated with Belarus, have broken into media companies systems and social media accounts of high-profile military officials, trying to spread disinformation that claimed Ukraine planned to surrender.

They are targeting critical infrastructure; however, these attempts were not so sophisticated as compared to todays recent attack, Mr. Zhora said of the recent hacking campaigns against Ukrainian companies.

Read more:
Ukraine Says It Thwarted a Sophisticated Russian Cyberattack on Its Power Grid - The New York Times

One moment, they were packed onto the platforms at the Kramatorsk train station, hundreds of women, children and old people, heeding the pleas of Ukrainian officials imploring them to flee ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.

The next moment, death rained from the air.

At least 50 people were killed and many more wounded in a missile assault on Friday morning that left bodies and luggage scattered on the ground and turned the Kramatorsk station into the site of another atrocity in the six-week-old war.

There are just children! one woman cried in a video from the aftermath.

The missile struck as officials in Kramatorsk and other cities in eastern Ukraine had been warning civilians to leave before Russian forces mount what is expected to be a major push into the region, where their troops have been regrouping after withdrawing from areas around Kyiv, the capital.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russia had hit the station with what he identified as a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile as thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting to be evacuated.

Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population, Mr. Zelensky said. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.

Russian officials, denying responsibility, said a Ukrainian battalion had fired the missile in what they called a provocation. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Tochka-U missiles are only used by the Ukrainian armed forces and that Russian troops had not made any strikes against Kramatorsk on Friday.

A senior Pentagon official said the United States believed Russian forces had fired the missile. They originally claimed a successful strike and then only retracted it when there were reports of civilian casualties, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential intelligence assessment.

The train station was hit as a top European Union delegation was visiting Mr. Zelenskys government, and the images of yet another mass killing provoked new Western outrage.

Whether one or more missiles struck the station was not immediately clear, and there was no way to independently verify the origin of the attack. Several parked cars were also hit, catching fire and turning into charred hulks. The waiting area was strewn with bodies and belongings.

After the strike, the Ukrainian police inspected the remains of a large rocket next to the train station with the words for our children written on it in Russian. It was unclear who had written the message and where the rocket had come from.

The mayor of Kramatorsk, Oleksandr Honcharenko, said 4,000 people had been at the station when it was attacked, the vast majority of them women, children and elderly people. At least two children were among the dead, he said.

The head of the military administration in the region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said 50 people had been killed, including 12 who died in the hospital. Another 98 were wounded, including 16 children, he said.

After the attack, Kramatorsk officials said they were trying to find cars and buses to evacuate civilians to western areas presumed to be less vulnerable to Russian attacks.

Ukraines railway service said that evacuations would proceed from nearby Sloviansk, where shelters and hospitals have been stocked with food and medicine in anticipation of an imminent Russian offensive.

Western countries, which have been shipping arms to Ukraine and tightening sanctions on Russia to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for the invasion, saw the Kramatorsk slaughter as new justification to intensify their efforts.

The attack on a Ukrainian train station is yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety, President Biden said on Twitter. He vowed to send more weapons to Ukraine and to work with allies to investigate the attack as we document Russias actions and hold them accountable.

President Emmanuel Macron of France called the strike abominable.

Ukrainian civilians are fleeing to escape the worst, he wrote on Twitter. Their weapons? Strollers, stuffed animals, luggage.

The station was hit as the Slovak president, Eduard Heger, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, were traveling to Kyiv in a show of support for Mr. Zelensky and his countrys bid for European Union membership.

Mr. Heger announced that Slovakia had given Ukraine an S-300 air defense system to help defend against Russian missiles and airstrikes.

To make the transfer possible, the Pentagon said it would reposition one Patriot missile system, operated by U.S. service members, to Slovakia. It was the latest buildup in arms and troops along NATOs eastern flank, as the alliance seeks to deter any Russian incursion.

Now is no time for complacency, Mr. Biden said in a statement announcing the Patriot repositioning. As the Russian military repositions for the next phase of this war, I have directed my administration to continue to spare no effort to identify and provide to the Ukrainian military the advanced weapons capabilities it needs to defend its country.

The attack on the railway station came after Russian forces had spent weeks shelling schools, hospitals and apartment buildings in an apparent attempt to pound Ukraine into submission by indiscriminately targeting civilian infrastructure, ignoring Geneva Convention protections that can make such actions war crimes.

Last month, an estimated 300 people were killed in an attack on a theater where hundreds had been sheltering in the battered port of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said. In recent days, growing evidence has pointed to atrocities in the devastated suburbs of Kyiv, where Ukrainian troops found bodies bound and shot in the head after Russian forces had retreated.

Ms. von der Leyen visited one of those suburbs, Bucha, on Friday before meeting with Mr. Zelensky.

It was important to start my visit in Bucha, she wrote on Twitter. Because in Bucha our humanity was shattered.

Russia has said its troops have been falsely accused and that the evidence against them is fake.

The repercussions of the fighting are spreading far beyond Europe. The United Nations reported on Friday that world food prices rose sharply last month to their highest levels ever, as the invasion sent shock waves through global grain and vegetable oil markets. Russia and Ukraine are important suppliers of the worlds wheat and other grains.

The report of rising prices came as the British government said Russia was heading for its deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union, estimating that the economy could shrink by as much as 15 percent this year.

On Friday, the European Union formally approved its fifth round of sanctions against Moscow, which included a ban on Russian coal and restrictions on Russian banks, oligarchs and Kremlin officials. The coal ban, which will cost Russia about $8.7 billion in annual revenue, takes effect immediately for new contracts. At Germanys insistence, however, existing contracts were given four months to wind down, softening the blow to Russia and Germany alike.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in London on Friday, applauded what Mr. Johnson called the seismic decision by Germany to turn away from Russian fuel. Britain has pushed for a total ban on Russian energy, a move that Germany, which heats half its homes with Russian gas, has resisted.

Mr. Johnson acknowledged the obstacles to transforming Germanys energy system overnight, but said we know that Russias war in Ukraine will not end overnight. Mr. Scholz said Mr. Putin had tried to divide European powers, but he will continue to experience our unity.

On Friday, Russia retaliated for some of the punishments from the West, declaring 45 Polish Embassy and Consulate staff persona non grata, and ordering them to leave Russia. Poland had expelled the same number of Russian diplomats.

Russias Justice Ministry also said it had revoked the registration of several prominent human rights groups in the country, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which have accused Russian troops of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The ministry accused the groups of violating an unspecified Russian law. The decision means the organizations are no longer allowed to operate in Russia.

Human Rights Watch said that forcing its office to close would not change its determination to call out Russias turn to authoritarianism. The group said it had been monitoring abuses in Russia since the Soviet era.

We found ways of documenting human rights abuses then, and we will do so in the future, it said.

Megan Specia reported from Krakow, Poland, and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Ivan Nechepurenko from Istanbul, Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels, Michael D. Shear and Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Mark Landler and Chris Stanford from London.

Read more:
What Happened on Day 44 of Russias Invasion of Ukraine - The New York Times

On April 12, 1861, rebel artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the U.S. Civil War. The war eventually became a catastrophe for the South, which lost more than a fifth of its young men. But why did the secessionists believe they could pull it off?

One reason was they believed themselves to be in possession of a powerful economic weapon. The economy of Britain, the worlds leading power at the time, was deeply dependent on Southern cotton, and they thought a cutoff of that supply would force Britain to intervene on the side of the Confederacy. Indeed, the Civil War initially created a cotton famine that threw thousands of Britons out of work.

In the end, of course, Britain stayed neutral in part because British workers saw the Civil War as a moral crusade against slavery and rallied to the Union cause despite their suffering.

Why recount this old history? Because it has obvious relevance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seems fairly clear that Vladimir Putin saw the reliance of Europe, and Germany in particular, on Russian natural gas the same way slave owners saw Britains reliance on King Cotton: a form of economic dependence that would coerce these nations into enabling his military ambitions.

And he wasnt entirely wrong. Last week I castigated Germany for its unwillingness to make economic sacrifices for the sake of Ukraines freedom. But lets not forget that Germanys response to Ukraines pleas for military aid on the eve of war was also pathetic. Britain and the United States rushed to provide lethal weapons, including hundreds of the anti-tank missiles that were so crucial in repelling Russias attack on Kyiv. Germany offered and dragged its feet on delivering 5,000 helmets.

And its not hard to imagine that if, say, Donald Trump were still president here, Putins bet that international trade would be a force for coercion, not peace, would have been vindicated.

If you think Im trying to help shame Germany into becoming a better defender of democracy, youre right. But Im also trying to make a broader point about the relationship between globalization and war, which isnt as simple as many people have assumed.

There has been a longstanding belief among Western elites that commerce is good for peace, and vice versa. Americas long push for trade liberalization, which began even before World War II, was always in part a political project: Cordell Hull, Franklin Roosevelts secretary of state, firmly believed that lower tariffs and increased international trade would help lay the foundations for peace.

The European Union, too, was both an economic and a political project. Its origins lie in the European Coal and Steel Community, established in 1952 with the explicit goal of making French and German industry so interdependent that there could never be another European war.

And the roots of Germanys current vulnerability go back to the 1960s, when the West German government began pursuing Ostpolitik eastern policy seeking to normalize relations, including economic relations, with the Soviet Union, in the hope that growing integration with the West would strengthen civil society and move the East toward democracy. Russian gas began flowing to Germany in 1973.

So does trade promote peace and freedom? Surely it does in some cases. In other cases, however, authoritarian rulers more concerned with power than with prosperity may see economic integration with other nations as a license for bad behavior, assuming that democracies with a strong financial stake in their regimes will turn a blind eye to their abuses of power.

Im not talking just about Russia. The European Union has stood by for years while Viktor Orban of Hungary has systematically dismantled liberal democracy. How much of this weakness can be explained by the large Hungarian investments that European, and especially German, companies have made while pursuing cost-cutting outsourcing?

And then theres the really big question: China. Does Xi Jinping see Chinas close integration with the world economy as a reason to avoid adventurous policies such as invading Taiwan or as a reason to expect a weak-kneed Western response? Nobody knows.

Now, Im not suggesting a return to protectionism. I am suggesting that national-security concerns about trade real concerns, not farcical versions like Trumps invocation of national security to impose tariffs on Canadian aluminum need to be taken more seriously than I, among others, used to believe.

More immediately, however, law-abiding nations need to show that they wont be deterred from defending freedom. Autocrats may believe that financial exposure to their authoritarian regimes will make democracies afraid to stand up for their values. We need to prove them wrong.

And what that means in practice is both that Europe must move quickly to cut off imports of Russian oil and gas and that the West needs to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs, not just to hold Putin at bay, but to win a clear-cut victory. The stakes here are much bigger than Ukraine alone.

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Opinion | Putin, Ukraine and the Illusion That Trade Brings Peace - The New York Times

Tim Wise, anti-racist author and keynote speaker at the University of Phoenix's Inclusive Leadership SummitOn Tuesday, the University of Phoenix launched a free, online inclusive leadership summit withDiverseasa co-sponsor.

Anti-racist author and activist Tim Wise was among the day's speakers.

Our theme for today is leading through tumultuous times, said Peter Cohen, the University of Phoenixs president emeritus. We must have courageous, honest, even raw conversations if we are to change any of this. Banning books in schools is not the path to enlightenment. Banning the discussion of sexual orientation in schools is not going to make us more inclusive.

Cohen added that the University of Phoenix is an open access university where more than 60% of students are people of color. Many students are also over the age of 35.

Given the institutions large population of historically underrepresented students, Cohen and colleagues noted the importance of this inaugural, multi-day event focusing on how people can impact diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace.

We want this summit to begin the action that you all will take in your own sphere of influence, said Tondra Richardson, director of student diversity and inclusion at the University of Phoenix.

Anti-racist author and activist Wise echoed Cohen in his keynote when referring to several state legislators working to outlaw books discuss slavery or anti-Black racism in K-12 schools. He added that the racial justice uprisings in the wake of George Floyd drew national attention to systemic racism.

And with that attention, a very predictable backlash from people fearful of change has now arrived, Wise said.

Once the narrative shifts and people start to use language like systemic injustice, that makes this moment very dangerous with two forces at play, one pulling forward and the other pulling backward. The question remains: who will prevail? said Wise, whose writings also focuses on white privilege. That is the question Im going to address today. How do we remain focused and resolute in the face of this backlash that is encompassing not only education but also the corporate world?

To do so, Wise emphasized depersonalizing the blame and personalizing the issue." He said equity work means showing radical humility to help people see that systemic injustices, not individual bad actors, at the greatest fault. This approach can foster more open, constructive dialogue with those resistant to change.

In addition, Wise encouraged talking about ones own racialization and how it has not only hurt others but has affected you. In other words, personalize the issue.

For me, the beginning of this real deliberative process was sitting down in the early 90s with a pad and paper and thinking about how race has shaped my life, my parents, my families, for as far back as I could remember, said Wise, who touched on how his identities as white, male, and Jewish have impacted his life.

Yet Wise closed the keynote with encouragement.

Know it is partly because we are winning that we are getting this pushback," said Wise. "There is no neutral. Youre either actively pushing against this system or you are acceding to it.

The Summit continues through Friday and will include a closing keynote on Thursday from Dr. J. Luke Wood, vice president of student affairs and campus diversity and Dean's Distinguished Professor of Education at San Diego State University.

Rebecca Kelliher can be reached at rkelliher@diverseeducation.com.

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University of Phoenix Kicks Off Inaugural Inclusive Leadership Summit - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

MogadishuSomalias first-ever all-women media unitlaunches today, providing a space where women media professionals can work with real decision-making authority and fully free from harassment.

The unit is staffed and managed entirely by women with full editorial independence and will produce stories for TV, radio and online media. One editor and five journalists will decide what issues to cover and how, with a mix of hard news and in-depth features that focus on the stories they think need telling.

Called Bilan, which means bright and clear in Somali, the unit is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and will be hosted inside the Dalsan Media Groups offices in Mogadishu, with content distributed through Dalsans existing platforms and also pitched to international outlets worldwide.

For too long, Somali women journalists have been treated as second class citizens and Somali news has ignored the stories and voices of half the population; now we are in charge of the boardroom and the narrative, said Nasrin Mohamed Ibraham, who is taking up the post of Bilans Chief Editor.Some people might not like the fact that I play football and lead a media team. But nobody will ever change my mind.

As a women-only media house we are going to be able to bring taboo subjects into the open. Our sisters, mothers and grandmothers will talk to us about issues they never dare speak about with men, said Fathi Mohamed Ahmed,Bilan's Deputy Editor.

In interviews conducted by UNDP over the last six months, women journalists have reported being harassed not just on the streets but even inside their own offices. They are often denied training opportunities and promotions, and when a woman does reach a position of authority, she is often ignored while more junior figures get to call the shots. News coverage reflects this, with a lack of programming on issues that are seen as primarily affecting women, including childcare, domestic abuse and equal political representation.

We hope this will be a game changer for the Somali media scene, opening up new opportunities for women journalists and shining a light on new subjects that have been ignored, particularly those that are important for women, said Jocelyn Mason, UNDPs Resident Representative in Mogadishu.

UNDP will also provide a long-term programme of training and mentoring, bringing in some of the biggest names in Somali and international journalism, including the BBCs Lyse Doucet and Razia Iqbal, Channel 4s Lyndsey Hilsum and Al Jazeeras Mohammed Adow, as well as creating opportunities to engage with women journalists working in similarly challenging environments around the world to exchange ideas and offer mutual support.

I believe Bilan will be a game-changer for me and for women in Somalia. I hope it will give us the freedom and safety to do a different kind of journalism beyond the usual diet of politics and conflict, said Bilan's journalist Naciima Saed Salah.

Even though I am young, I am ready to leave my family in Baidoa and move to Mogadishu to work for Bilan. I want to highlight the problems women face in my region, especially in terms of political representation, said journalistShukri Mohamed Abdi.

To develop the next generation of Somali women journalists, the unit will offer six-month internship opportunities for the best final-year women journalism students at two universities in Mogadishu.

For more information and to arrange interviews:

Robert Few, Head of Communications, UNDP Somalia:robert.few@undp.org+252 61 41 25 046

Ilyas Ahmed, Communications Analyst, UNDP Somalia:ilyas.abukar@undp.org+ 252 61 55 43 476

To pitch stories or discuss media partnerships with Bilan:

Nasrin Mohamed Ibraham, Chief Editor of Bilan:nadarwww@gmail.com+252 61 54 34 281

Quotes, bios, photos and video from Bilans women journalists:

(Full bios, photos and videoare available here)

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Somalia's first all-women media team puts women journalists in control of the news agenda - United Nations Development Programme