Over 30 Killed in Russian Rocket Strike on Ukrainian Train Station

Matt PalumboApril 8, 2022

At least 39 people were killed and 87 wounded Friday in a Russian rocket attack on a railroad station in eastern Ukraine — where civilians were trying to evacuate to safer parts of the country, officials said.

“Two rockets hit Kramatorsk railway station,” Ukrainian Railways said in a statement that called the attack a “purposeful strike on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of the city of Kramatorsk.”

Graphic photographs provided by Ukrainian officials showed bodies strewn on the ground next to scattered luggage and charred vehicles.

The remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian painted on it also was seen on the ground next to the station, according to ABC News.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on Facebook that a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile was used in the deadly strike.

“Russian forces (fired) on an ordinary train station, on ordinary people, there were no soldiers there,” he told Finland’s parliament in a video address, Reuters reported.

The station was being used for the evacuation of civilians from areas under bombardment by Russian forces, according to the news agency.

Belongings of civilians are seen after over 30 people awaiting evacuation were killed, more than 100 injured in the Russian missile strike.

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian painted on it was seen on the ground next to the station.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said thousands of people had been at the station at the time of the attack.

“The ‘Rashists’ (‘Russian fascists’) knew very well where they were aiming and what they wanted: they wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible,” he said.

Kyrylenko posted a horrifying photograph online showing several bodies lying beside piles of suitcases as armed police officers wearing flak jackets stood beside them.

A Ukrainian policeman bends over bodies laid on the ground after a rocket attack killed at least 30 people in Kramatorsk on April 8, 2022.

Another image showed emergency personnel fighting a fire as thick smoke rose into the air.

Russia denied its involvement in the attack.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the involvement of Russian forces in the attack had already been ruled out by the Russian Ministry of Defense, based on the type of missile cited by Zelensky.

Ukrainian first responders tend to victims in the aftermath of a rocket attack on a railway station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbass region. — Ukrainian first responders tend to victims in the aftermath of a rocket attack on a railway station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbas region.

“Our armed forces do not use missiles of this type,” Peskov told reporters during a press briefing Friday. “No combat tasks were set or planned for today in Kramatorsk.”

Kyrylenko confirmed that the death toll had risen from 30 to 39.

He said in a statement via Telegram that 87 people were wounded, many seriously. The number of injured was down from earlier estimates of more than 100.

Emergency personnel walk among the injured on the platform in the aftermath of the Russian attack on the railway station.

The attack occurred as “thousands” of civilians fleeing the Russians were at the train station waiting to be taken to “safer regions of Ukraine,” according to Kyrylenko, who accused Russian forces of “deliberately trying to disrupt the evacuation of civilians.”

He added: “The evacuation will continue. Anyone who wants to leave the region will be able to do so.”

Moscow has denied targeting civilians since the country launched its invasion on Feb. 24.

Ukrainian first responders check for signs of life among casualties lying on the platform in the aftermath of the rocket attack.

However, intercepted radio messages released Thursday appeared to catch Russian troops complaining about being vastly outnumbered — and being ordered to “f–king kill” civilians, according to Ukraine intelligence.

“Civilians, everyone, slay them all!” a Russian commander barked at his underlings during the brutal assault on Mariupol, according to a clip released Wednesday by the Security Service of Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have warned that Russians 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.

Ukrainian servicemen lift a wounded woman into an ambulance following the attack.

Farther west toward the capital of Kyiv, more than 300 people have been reportedly killed by Russian forces in Bucha, 50 of whom were executed, Sky News reported.

Moscow claimed the verified images of bodies in the town were staged by the Ukrainian government to derail peace negotiations.

Zelensky said a similar situation to Bucha was unfolding about 15 miles away in Borodyanka.

A man carries an injured dog after a rocket attack on the railway station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

“The work on dismantling the debris in Borodyanka began… It’s much worse there,” he said in his nightly presidential address.

“And what will happen when the world learns the whole truth about what the Russian military did in Mariupol? There, on almost every street, is what the world saw in Bucha and other towns in the Kyiv region after the withdrawal of Russian troops,” Zelensky continued.

“The same cruelty. The same heinous crimes,” he added.

A photo taken earlier this week shows how crowded the station has been as families rush to evacuate.

Russian forces pulled out of Bucha last week, under pressure from Ukrainian forces, but relief at their departure soon turned to grief as the numbers of deaths became apparent.

The war, which has now entered its seventh week, has seen millions flee Ukraine, thousands killed and injured, and once-thriving cities reduced to rubble.

Moscow said one of its aims is to “liberate” largely Russian-speaking places such as the southern port of Mariupol from the threat of genocide by Ukrainian nationalists, who it says have used civilians as human shields.

Families wait to board a train at Kramatorsk central station as they flee the eastern Ukraine city in a photo taken on April 5.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, speaking in his first broadcast interview with British media since the invasion started, told Sky News the images coming out of Bucha were a “well-staged insinuation, nothing else”.

Dmitry Peskov said “we’re living in days of fakes and lies” and that the verified images of dead civilians were a “bold fake”.

“We deny the Russian military can have something in common with these atrocities and that dead bodies were shown on the streets of Bucha,” he told Sky News.