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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for “a firm global response” following Friday’s bombing of a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, which killed 52 people. Civilians had gathered there to flee the region for fear of a Russian offensive.
“This is another Russian war crime for which everyone involved will be held accountable,” Zelensky said in a video message, referring to the missile strike. Five children are among those killed, according to a latest report from local authorities.
“World powers have already condemned Russia’s attack on Kramatorsk. We expect a strong global response to this war crime,” he continued. US President Joe Biden has denounced a “horrible atrocity” committed by Moscow, while French diplomacy speaks of a “crime once morest humanity”.
Russian denials brushed aside
Moscow denied being responsible for the strike, saying it did not have the type of missile that would have been used, before denouncing a Ukrainian “provocation”. A senior US Department of Defense official dismissed the arguments of Russian authorities. “I note that initially they reported a successful strike and that they retracted only following reports of civilian casualties,” said the official.
The Russian Ministry of Defense had indeed announced earlier Friday that the Russian army had destroyed with high precision missiles “weapons and other military equipment in the stations of Pokrovsk, Sloviansk and Barvinkove”, localities all located not far from Kramatorsk, the “capital” of the part of Donbass still under Ukrainian control.
The missile fell around 10:30 a.m., at a time when candidates for evacuation have been gathering for days by the hundreds in the city’s train station to flee the Donbass, now a priority objective for the Russian army. AFP journalists saw at least 30 bodies in body bags or under tarpaulins. The sidewalks were streaked with blood. Abandoned suitcases, stuffed animals and food littered the docks.
“For our children”
On the forecourt, the remains of a missile were still visible: it read in Russian “For our children”. A recurring expression of pro-Russian separatists in reference to their children killed since the first Donbass war, which began in 2014.
Arrived Friday in Ukraine for a support visit, accompanied by the head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, for her part denounced a “despicable attack”. The two went to Boutcha, near kyiv, a city symbol of the atrocities of which Russia is accused.
Dozens of corpses wearing civilian clothes, some with their hands tied behind their backs, were discovered in this locality 30 km from the Ukrainian capital, in early April following the departure of Russian forces.
“I am deeply convinced that Ukraine will win this war, that democracy will win this war,” Ms. von der Leyen then declared in kyiv, during a joint press conference with Mr. Zelensky.
The Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, must also go to Boutcha on Saturday, as well as to kyiv.
After withdrawing its troops from the kyiv region and northern Ukraine, Russia has made the total conquest of Donbass, part of which has been controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists, its priority. And in anticipation of a massive offensive, local authorities in eastern Ukraine are scrambling to evacuate civilians.