At least 35 people died in an attack on the train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, according to rescuers. According to the railway company, at least 100 other people were injured on Friday when two rockets hit the station, where thousands of people from eastern Ukraine have been fleeing westward for days. In an initial reaction, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia as “evil without limits”.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw at least 20 dead in body bags and under plastic tarps. By early morning, he’d seen hundreds of people waiting for a train to flee west.
Burnt-out cars were parked in front of the station building, pools of blood and charred benches could be seen at the entrance and in the station lobby. The remains of a rocket with the Russian inscription “For our children” lay in the station yard. The place was littered with abandoned luggage, shards of glass and shrapnel.
“This is boundless evil”
In an initial reaction, Ukrainian President Zelenskiy accused Russia of “cynically annihilating” his country’s civilian population. “This is an evil without borders,” he wrote on Twitter. “And if it’s not punished, it will never stop.”
Kramatorsk is located in the part of the contested Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, which is controlled by Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists claim the entire administrative area. People who brought suitcases and bags wanted to leave the city for fear of being attacked.