Ukraine: 30 killed in Kramatorsk city as Russian rockets hit train station, claim local authorities

Ukranian authorities claimed on Friday that over 30 people were killed in eastern Ukraine’s Kramatorsk city after two Russian rockets struck a railway station, Reuters reported.

More than a hundred people were injured in the attack, according to the Ukranian Railways.

However, the Russian defence ministry has denied that it attacked the train station, and said that statements to this effect from Kyiv were “absolutely untrue”, AFP reported.

The Kramatorsk train station was being used to evacuate civilians from areas that were being attacked by Russian forces. The city is located in a part of the Donetsk region that is controlled by Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, claimed that thousands of people were at the station when the rocket strike took place. “The ‘Rashists’ [Russian fascists] knew very well where they were aiming and what they wanted: they wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible,” he said.

Kyrylenko released photographs on social media, one of which purportedly showed bodies on the ground alongside suitcases and other luggage. Another photograph showed rescue workers walking on a street with a fire in the distance.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged that Russian forces were “cynically destroying the civilian population” and described them as “an evil without limits”, AP reported.

Emine Dzheppar, Ukraine First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs alleged that Russia is continuing to commit war crimes in the east European country. “Punish [Russia] with severe sanctions now or it will be too late and more people will die,” she said.

The attack on the Kramatorsk railway station took place a day after the United Nations General Assembly suspended Russia from its Human Rights Council and expressed “grave concern” about humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.