Editorial Note: Graphic Images Below
A Russian Federation (RF) long-range missile slammed into a Donbas regional railroad station jammed with civilian refugees and railroad staff, killing at least 50 and wounding more than 100, news reports said on Friday.
Gruesome images from the scene made public by the UNIAN news agency and other independent news media showed at least eight travelers cut down by fragments, and suitcases, baby strollers and bags and suitcases spotted with blood and cut by flying metal. A Kramatorsk resident confirmed to the Kyiv Post the strike had taken place and that emergency response teams were on the scene.
Initial reports stated that at least 30 civilians had been killed. Later Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military -administration, said on Telegram that the number had risen to 50 and that 5 children were killed.
Images showed the debris of a heavy RF missile, a weapon normally used to target airfields or troop concentrations, embedded in grass in front of the rail station. Isolated early reports identified the weapon as Iksander missile, one of the RF’s most modern weapons. Later multiple reports said an older, Soviet-era Tochka-U missile delivered the attack.The missile hit in the mid-morning hours as Kramatorsk region residents, mostly women and children, were waiting for trains to take them out of the region to safety.
Carnage at Kramatorsk railway station
Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said there are no military facilities near Kramatorsk rail station, and that the missile strike had been preceded by drone reconnaissance. The attack was premeditated and intended to inflict maximum civilian casualties, he claimed.A key road and rail junction in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Kramatorsk is a likely objective for a major Russian Federation (RF) army offensive planned in the region in coming days or weeks, Ukrainian civilian and military officials have said. Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk region defense command, in a Friday statement said the RF assault could come “any day”. Hadai earlier this week repeatedly appealed to local residents to evacuate Donbas to avoid the coming offensive, and if possible use the train because rail links with the West soon could be halted.
Scenes of carnage and devastation
Renewed RF bombardments of civilian homes and businesses also took place on April 8 in Ukraine’s Dnipro, Odesa and Luhansk regions. The strikes in Odesa were long-range missiles hitting fuel storage infrastructure, and causing casualties, an official statement said, without giving detailes.
while artillery and artillery rocket bombardments.
In Luhansk Rgion, RF forces used artillery rockets and incendiary air bombs, Haidai said.
In Dnipro Region three artillery strikes killed four civilians, hospitalized seven and left two missing, a regional defense command statement said.
Following the Ukraine Armed Force’s (UAF) defeat of an offensive to capture Kyiv, RF forces have increasingly targeted Ukrainian homes and businesses, in an apparent attempt to browbeat the Ukrainian populace into submission.
Kyiv officials led by President Volodymyr Zelensky have vowed to go on fighting and to prosecute RF officials and soldiers responsible for attacking Ukrainian civilians, for war crimes.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said on April 7 that “Russian military forces have extrajudicially executed civilians in Ukraine in apparent war crimes.”
