At least 30 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in a Russian missile strike on a railway station in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s state railway company said two Russian rockets had struck the station in Kramatorsk, which is used to evacuate 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.”
Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said thousands of people were at the train station at the time of the strike, preparing to evacuate to safer regions as Russia focuses its troops in eastern Ukraine.
Reuters news agency said it could not immediately verify the information. Russia has not yet commented on the reports of the attack and the death toll. Moscow has denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24.
‘The occupiers hit the Kramatorsk railway station with a Point-U, where thousands of peaceful Ukrainians were waiting to be evacuated… About 30 people died, about 100 people were injured to varying degrees,’
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in an Instagram post after the attack.
‘Police and rescuers are already on the scene. Russian non-humans do not abandon their methods. Lacking the strength and courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, 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,’ he added.
Kramatorsk is found in the east of the country, about 80 miles west of Luhansk. Pictures this week have shown hundreds of people at the station boarding trains heading west.
Three trains carrying evacuees were blocked in the same region of Ukraine on Thursday after an airstrike on the line, according to the head of Ukrainian Railways.
Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have been regrouping for a new offensive, and that Moscow plans to seize as much territory as it can in the eastern part of Ukraine known as Donbas bordering Russia.
