Current live news: “Dozens” died in the city of eastern Ukraine after a missile strike on the railway station

Remains of Russian rocket after rocket attack on Kramatorsk railway station on Friday © AFP via Getty Images

Russian missiles hit a railway station in Kramatorsk on Friday, killing dozens in a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as Moscow stepped up its offensive in the eastern part of the country.

“Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike as residents of the Donetsk region evacuated to safer areas of Ukraine,” said Pavlo Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk military-civilian administration in the current martial law in Ukraine.

He added that police and rescue workers had reported “dozens dead and injured”.

Citing Russian forces, he said they “know very well where they are aiming and what they want.”

“They wanted to face as many peaceful people as possible, they wanted to destroy everything Ukrainian,” Kirilenko said.

According to Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukrainian Railways, more than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in the rocket attack.

“This is a deliberate blow to the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of Kramatorsk,” the company said in its Telegram channel.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the station had been hit by Russian Tochka tactical ballistic missiles.

Unconfirmed videos posted on social networks by Ukrzaliznytsia show that Ukrainian police are touring corpses at the site of the strike.

In the six weeks since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s troops have largely withdrawn from territory north of Kyiv after failing to capture the capital, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials. However, they regrouped and rearmed before attempting an offensive in the Eastern Donbass region, where Kramatorsk is located.

Friday’s strike follows a Thursday attack on a railway bridge near Kramatorsk, about 35km from the front line.

The strike hampered efforts to evacuate civilians from the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. On Thursday, Sergei Haidai, head of Ukraine’s military administration in Luhansk, said Russian forces were regrouping and would “try to launch an offensive” within three to four days.

Neither Russian nor Ukrainian military claims can be verified independently.