Ukraine and its allies have blamed Russia for a missile attack that killed at least 52 people at a train station in eastern Ukraine in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was a deliberate attack on civilians.
Ukraine's state railway company said two Russian rockets struck the station on April 8 in Kramatorsk, which was being used to evacuate civilians from areas that are expected to come under heavy attack as Moscow redirects its war efforts to focus on eastern areas where the separatists it has backed since 2014 have been fighting Ukrainian troops.
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Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said late on April 8 that the number of deaths had risen to 52.
Kyrylenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile containing cluster munitions that explode in midair, spraying small bomblets over a wider area. The claim could not be verified.
The Russian Defense Ministry and the Kremlin denied Russia was responsible for the attack. The ministry was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine's military and that Russia's armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on April 8.
"We expect a firm global response to this war crime," Zelenskiy said in a speech posted on Facebook.
World leaders condemned the attack.
U.S. President Joe Biden reacted on Twitter, calling the attack "yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who were trying to evacuate and reach safety."
The French government called it a "crime against humanity," and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described it as "unconscionable."
"This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop," Zelenskiy said in a statement.
Zelenskiy reported that 300 people were injured, saying that no Ukrainian troops were at the station. In a video address to Finland's parliament, he said Europe cannot offer a "partial response" to Russia and its aggression "because freedom will not survive if we leave the channels of tyranny."
Video and images recorded by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service showed dozens of dead civilians next to backpacks and suitcases they were carrying with them.
"The Russians are deliberately trying to disrupt the evacuation of civilians…. For them, people's lives are just a bargaining chip and an instrument to achieve their cynical goal," Kyrylenko said.
Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said about 4,000 people were at the station at the time of the attack. He told an online briefing that some victims had lost legs or arms.
WATCH: A child's blood-spattered toy, suitcases, and charred cars littered the railway station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on April 8 after a Russian rocket attack that struck when around 1,000 people were waiting for a train to evacuate them to a safer part of the country.
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Bloodstained Wreckage Litters Ukrainian Railway Station After Russian Attack
The remains of a large rocket with the words "for our children" in Russian was lying just adjacent to the main train station building.
Referring to that message, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a Kyiv news conference: "The cynical behavior has almost no benchmark anymore.... It is unbelievable."
The attack came as von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, and Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger were in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskiy.