50 people, includinng five children, were killed by a Russian rocket strike on a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, Ukrainian officials said.
12 people were killed at scene of the strike, 38 later died from their injuries in hospital, Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
The station in Kramatorsk had been used by civilians fleeing fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Russian troops had retreated from areas near Kyiv and Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. They were believed to be regrouping in Belarus and in Russia for a refocus on eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has recognized self-proclaimed separatist republics in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Ukraine President Zelenskyy said ‘thousands of peaceful Ukrainians’ crowded the Kramatorsk station when the rocket attack took place.
Ukraine has accused the Russians of executing hundreds of peaceful civilians as well as of torture and rape, with 300 bodies found in a mass grave in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, some of whom were discovered shot in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs.
‘Not having the strength and courage to confront us on the battlefield, (Russian forces) are cynically destroying the civilian population,’ Zelenskyy wrote.
‘This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop.’