Dozens of people have reportedly died after a missile strike hit a train station in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kramatorsk, where civilians were said to be evacuating the region. (Warning: graphic imagery.)
Though both Ukraine and Russia have agreed that a missile hit the train station, the two sides blamed each other for the attack.
Ukrainian officials have claimed that the missile in question was from an Iskander system.
“Russian Nazis hit the Kramatorsk railway station, using an Iskander missile system. Police and rescuers are working on the spot. There are dozens of killed and injured people,” Ukraine’s Donetsk Regional Military Administrator Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote according to Ukrinform.
Kyrylenko claimed that thousands of people were at the railway station during the time of the missile attack amid the civilian evacuation of the Donetsk region.
The remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian is pictured next to the main building of a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that was being used for civilian evacuations, that was hit by a rocket attack killing at least 35 people, on April 8, 2022. (Photo by FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, a statement from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) – a Russia-backed separatist entity that Moscow has recognized as a sovereign state – said: “A missile strike was delivered on the railway station in Kramatorsk where the evacuation of civilians is underway. The Tochka-U missile fragments fell in close proximity to the railway station.”
According to the TASS Russian state news agency, the DRP territorial defence headquarters claimed that the Tochka-U tactical missile they say was used in the railway strike is not operational their territory or the other separatist region of Luhansk, but it is used by the Ukrainian military.
Families hold bags as they wait to board a train at Kramatorsk central station as they flee the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbass region on April 5, 2022. (Photo by FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, claims that over 30 people were killed in the blast and over 100 were injured.
They described the incident as a “targeted attack on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and residents of the city of Kramatorsk.”
GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING:
A woman glances at her smartphone standing among casualties lying on the platform in the aftermath of a rocket attack on the railway station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbass region on April 8, 2022. More than 30 people were killed and over 100 injured in a rocket attack on a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday, the head of the national railway company said. (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite Russia denying involvement, the attack has already seen international condemnation of Moscow, including from the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, “strongly condemned” Russia for the attack, describing the strike “as another attempt to close escape routes for those fleeing this unjustified war and cause human suffering”.
The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said that she was “appalled” by the train station attack and that “targeting of civilians is a war crime”.
“We will hold Russia and Putin to account,” Truss added.
Calcinated cars are pictured outside a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that was being used for civilian evacuations, after it was hit by a rocket attack killing at least 35 people, on April 8, 2022. (Photo by FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
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