We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

It is thought Russian troops fired deadly rockets containing cluster munitions on the site in Kramatorsk. Thousands had gathered at the station in an attempt to escape Putin’s brutality. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky branded the massacre of civilians, many of them women and children, as “an evil without limits”. He warned Putin must be punished ­otherwise “it will never stop”.

Local officials said 38 people were declared dead at the station. Twelve died from their injuries in hospital.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksander Honcharenko said some of the injured ­victims had lost arms and legs in the missile strikes.

He added that hospitals were immediately overwhelmed as 30 to 40 surgeons operated on the wounded at the same time.

Around 4,000 people were at the train station when the rockets landed, Mr Honcharenko said. Body parts, broken glass, toys, suitcases and pushchairs were seen scattered around the station and across the platforms after the missiles hit.

A message painted in Russian on the side of a missile appeared to read: “For the children.”

The US believes the missiles were fired from a Russian position within Ukraine.

The horrific attack follows a series of discoveries of mass graves and other atrocities across Ukraine this week.

Last night, despite the evidence, Russia denied involvement in the station strike. A Kremlin spokesman said its forces had no scheduled missions in the area.

But Mr Zelensky said: “The inhuman Russians are not changing their methods. Without the strength or courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they are cynically destroying the civilian population.

“This is an evil without limits. And if it is not punished, then it will never stop.”

Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said most of those attempting to evacuate to safer areas of the country from the station were elderly people, women and children.

He said: “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.” Just moments before the atrocity, the platforms were crowded with people attempting to board trains ­heading West.

Serhiy Hayday, the governor of Luhansk, another eastern region, had earlier implored residents to leave before Russian troops arrived in a new offensive.

The Kremlin has abandoned plans to seize Kyiv after a series of defeats and a heroic Ukrainian fightback. But the shift in tactics has also seen Putin’s forces target civilian populations in increasingly brutal assaults.

Mr Kyrylenko warned last night: “Fifty dead, five of them children. This is the death toll at this hour after the strike by Russian occupational forces on the train station
in Kramatorsk.”

Of the 98 wounded who were taken to medical facilities, 16 were children, 46 were women and 36 were men. Later, some 20 bodies, all dressed in civilian ­clothing, were grouped and placed under plastic sheets next to a kiosk daubed yellow and blue – the colours of Ukraine’s flag – outside the station, where blood pooled on the ground.

A terrified witness described the devastation as she desperately hunted for her passport after the attack yesterday.

She said: “I was in the station. I heard a double explosion. I rushed to the wall for protection.

“I saw people covered in blood coming into the station and bodies everywhere on the ground. I don’t know if they were just injured or dead.”

Four burnt-out cars could be seen nearby, along with the remains of a rocket, which lay next to the station building.

It is thought Russian troops fired deadly OTR-21 Tochka-U ballistic missiles ­containing cluster munitions.

Oleksandr Kamyshin, the head of Ukrainian Railways, said a missile fell down on an area adjacent to the Kramatorsk ­station, and “all of the people that were around and inside were hit by the pieces of the rocket”.

Mr Kamyshin said the station building itself was “shelled and broken”. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova called the attack a “crime against humanity”.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said: “They wanted to hit the station.

“It must be understood that such strikes are preceded by a thorough reconnaissance of the target, at least by drones, gunners on the ground.

“It’s too expensive a missile and too difficult and risky to organise such strikes.

“They could clearly see that they were striking civilians early in the morning, that there were thousands of people trying to evacuate at the station at that time – families, children,
the elderly.”

As Russian forces have retreated, the true scale of the horrors of war have been uncovered in recent days.

The Kremlin’s killers have indiscriminately killed civilians, tortured innocent people, raped women and dumped bodies in mass graves, it was widely reported.

In his nightly video address yesterday, Mr Zelensky referenced the “heinous crimes” that have been discovered in his country after the withdrawal of invading troops. The besieged southern port of Mariupol has seen some of the greatest suffering since Russia invaded Ukraine, he said.

After failing to take Ukraine’s capital, the Kremlin has shifted its focus to the Donbas region in the south-eastern part of the nation. Meanwhile, Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk claimed Ukrainian forces were responsible for the rail station strike.

Russian propaganda has accused Ukraine of bombing children in the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Kremlin has tried to justify the war as a “liberation” of those areas and revenge for such alleged attacks.

Shortly after the missile strike, pro-Russia video messaging accounts were said to be celebrating the station attack as a blow against the Ukrainian military.

Underneath a video showing smoke billowing and debris scattered across streets, the Kremlin-linked Russian journalist Dmitry Steshin wrote: “Ten minutes ago this arrived at the Kramatorsk railway station.

“Here was working a group of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

Source: Read Full Article