At least 39 people were killed, including four children, in a Russian rocket strike on a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Friday as civilians tried to evacuate to safer parts of the country, the state railway company said.
At least 87 more were wounded, many of which are in critical condition, the governor reported.
“Russian fascists bombed Kramatorsk station, 39 killed including four children,” SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko said on Facebook.
The Russian forces used Tochka-U missile systems to hit a train station where thousands of civilians were waiting for evacuation at the moment of the attack, the Kyiv Independent news agency reported.
Just two days earlier, on April 6, the Ukrainian authorities urged the residents of the country’s eastern regions – Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts – to evacuate, ahead of the military escalation in the area.
“Evacuations have been going on since Feb. 26, and the Russians knew that thousands of people are there every day. I believe that’s what they were counting on,” media agency Kyiv Independent reported quoting spokeswoman Ihnatchenko as saying.
According to the agency Governor Kyrylenko said that the Russians deliberately targeted civilians.
“Russians are deliberately trying to disrupt the evacuation of civilians to use civilians as a shield,” he wrote. “For them, people’s lives are just a bargaining chip and a tool to achieve their cynical goal.”
Nevertheless, Kyrylenko said that the evacuation will continue.
“Anyone who wants to leave the region will be able to do so,” he said, adding that further instructions are coming soon.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces regained control of the entire northeast region of Sumy along the border with Russia, its governor said.
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