Dozens killed in Russian rocket attack on train station in eastern Ukraine

Dozens of people were killed and injured in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, after a rocket attack by Russian forces on a city train station used for evacuation, Ukrainian authorities said.

The head of the military administration of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kirilenko said that 39 people were killed and 87 were injured in the bombing. A significant proportion of the injured are in critical condition. At least two children have been killed, according to the head of the Ukrainian State Railway Administration, Ukraine. Journalists The Washington Post Who arrived at the station 15 minutes after the attack, counted at least 20 dead during the destruction, US media reported.

According to the governor of Donetsk, thousands of people were present at the station during the rocket attack, which was an important place for civil evacuation. “They knew very well where they were aiming and what they wanted, they wanted to spread panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible.”

The city’s mayor, Alexander Honcharenko, said 4,000 people, mostly women and children, were at the station when the rockets hit. From this station, from where trains travel to several cities in western and central Ukraine, civilians are evacuated daily, according to the country’s media.

Ukrzaliznitsia reported on the Telegram that two rockets hit. “This is a deliberate attack on the railway infrastructure and the residents of Kramatorsk.

Pictures shared by the authorities show several corpses lying on the ground between a pile of suitcases and other items and traces of blood. They also show firefighters completing tasks, and a cloud of gray smoke rises into the air. Police and rescuers are working on the spot.

[Atención: imágenes explícitas que pueden herir la sensibilidad del espectador]

As reported by the President of Ukraine, three trains carrying evacuators were blocked after an airstrike in the same region of Ukraine this Thursday.

The governor of the Donetsk region has accused Russian forces of “deliberately disrupting” the evacuation of civilians. “For them, human life is just a means of trade and a weapon to achieve their cynical goal. The evacuation will continue. “Anyone who wants to leave the region will be able to do so.”

Regional and national authorities have called on civilians in recent days to flee the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk as they prepare for a Russian-led offensive in the east, where they say Russian forces will try to take control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia has said it now wants to focus on the “liberation” of Donbas, east of the country where the regions are located and on Moscow-recognized separatist territories. Kramatorsk is in government-controlled territory.

According to Russian sources, despite several Russian bombings against civilian infrastructure, the Russian Defense Ministry has denied responsibility for the attack on the station, saying the Ukrainian government’s statements were “provocative and completely false.”

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has condemned what he calls “boundless evil.” “The occupiers attacked the Kramatorsk railway station with a point-U (rocket), where thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting for the evacuation. “Russian non-humans are not abandoning their methods. They do not have the strength and courage to oppose us on the battlefield, cynically destroying civilians. This is an evil that has no boundaries. And if he is not punished, he will never stop. ”

“I strongly condemn the indiscriminate Russian attack on a train station in Kramatorsk this morning, which killed dozens and injured dozens,” said Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign minister in Kyiv. “This is a new attempt to close the escape routes for those fleeing this unjust war and causing human suffering.