At least 35 people were killed and around 100 more were injured after a rocket attacked a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday, AFP quoted rescue workers as saying.
The state railway company said two Russian rockets had struck a station in the city of Kramatorsk which is used for the evacuation of civilians from areas under bombardment by Russian forces.
“Two rockets hit Kramatorsk railway station,” Ukrainian Railways said in a statement. It later added: “According to operational data, more than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the rocket attack on Kramatorsk railway station.”
However, the numbers increased as the rescue work started. Russia did not immediately comment on the reports of the attack and the casualty toll. Moscow has denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said thousands of people had been at the station at the time the rockets struck.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Russia as an “evil with no limits” after the rocket attack.
“They are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media after the strikes on a hub that has been used by many civilians in recent days to flee an anticipated Russian advance.
Meanwhile, civilians in eastern Ukraine struggle to evacuate, after officials tell them they have a “last chance” to avoid a major Russian offensive expected in the Donbas region.
Russia has redeployed its troops towards the east and south, aiming to create a land link between occupied Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas.
Ukrainian forces are in control of the northeast region of Sumy along the border with Russia, governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky says on social media.
He warns: “the region is not safe. There are many areas that have been mined and are still not cleared.”
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