ROCKET STRIKE KILLS 50 AT RAILWAY STATION IN UKRAINE, RUSSIA DENIES CHARGE

At least 50 people, including five children, were killed and several others were injured in a rocket strike at a crowded railway station in Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk, Ukraine said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a deliberate attack on civilians.

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the death toll rose to 50 from an earlier reported 39 as some of the several dozen wounded had died after being taken to hospital or medical centres.

He said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile that contained cluster munitions, which explode mid-air, spraying small lethal bomblets over a wider area. “They wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible,” he said.

However, Russia denied carrying out the missile attack on Friday on the railway station in Kramatorsk city in the northern portion of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine and blamed Ukraine for the same. “According to clarified information, the strike on Kramatorsk railway station was carried out by the missile division of the Ukrainian armed forces from the area of Dobropol’e, 45 kilometres south-west of the city,” said the Russian Embassy in India. Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack and noted that the aim of Kyiv regime’s strike on the railway station in Kramatorsk was to disrupt the mass exit of residents from the city in order to use them as a “human shield” to defend Ukrainian armed forces positions, as in many other Ukrainian population centres.

The Embassy added, “All allegations that Russia conducted missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk city on April 8 are a provocation and has nothing to do with reality.”

Russia stated that the Kyiv regime has posted on social media pictures of Tochka-U missile launchers that took part in “Union Courage 2022” Russian-Belarusian exercise this February. It added that the photos show non-Russian missile systems. The Embassy accused Ukraine saying that Tochka-U tactical missiles, the wreckage of which was found near the Kramatorsk railway station and published by eyewitnesses, are used by Ukrainian armed forces only.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said no Ukrainian troops were at the station. “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.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksander Honcharenko estimated that about 4,000 people were at the station at the time of the attack. “Some people have lost a leg, others an arm. They are now receiving medical assistance. The hospitals are carrying out about 40 operations simultaneously,” the mayor said in an online briefing.

Meanwhile, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and its Vice-President Josep Borrell Fontelles along with Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Eduard Heger arrived in Kyiv on Friday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discuss the bloc’s proposals for the country invaded by Russia.

“In Ukraine with @vonderleyen (Ursula von der Leyen) and we’re ready to discuss our proposals for helping Ukraine with @ZelenskyyUa (Volodymyr Zelenskyy) and @Denys_Shmyhal (Denys Shmyhal). To help get EU perspective by creating a reform team. To offer options for transporting grains, including wheat and to increase the use of a humanitarian hub,” Heger tweeted.

The European Union is imposing sanctions against lawmakers and officials of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, the European Commission said on Friday.

“The Commission also welcomes that an additional 217 individuals and 18 entities have now been sanctioned. This includes all 179 members of the so-called ‘governments’ and ‘parliaments’ of Donetsk and Luhansk. In total, 1091 individuals and 80 entities have been sanctioned since 2014,” the commission said in a statement, adding that the EU will work on new sanctions against Russia that may target oil imports.