Britain: Russia's forces have completely withdrawn from northern Ukraine... And Russian Defense: We bombed a mercenary training center in Odessa with "Bastion" missiles.
Ukrainian authorities and aid teams confirmed Friday that a missile strike killed 50 people and wounded nearly 100 at a train station that was being used to evacuate civilians in eastern Ukraine.
Fifty people, including 5 children, were killed on Friday in the missile attack that targeted a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, where civilians were being evacuated, the region's governor announced.
Pavlo Kirilenko wrote on the Telegram application: "50 dead, including five children. This is the number of victims so far, as a result of the strike launched by the Russian occupation forces on the Kramatorsk station," noting that 98 wounded were taken to hospital.
The Ukrainian presidential advisor said that the Kramatorsk train station was targeted by an "Iskander" missile, while the Russian Defense Ministry denied the bombing, stressing that the missile used to bomb the train station was used only by Ukraine.
The Russian defense also confirmed that its forces did not bomb any targets today in Kramatorsk.
For his part, the head of Ukrainian Railways, Alexander Kamyshin, said on the “Telegram” application that the strike took place today in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region, with missile strikes, while the governor of the region, Pavlo Kirilenko, said that thousands of people were at the train station at the time of the strike. They are preparing to evacuate to safer areas, as Russia is concentrating its forces in eastern Ukraine.
US Embassy in Kyiv: Russian attack is a "brutal" act
Today, Friday, the US embassy in Kyiv described the attack, which it said Russia had launched on a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, as another "brutal" act committed by Moscow as part of its current military operation.
"The world will hold (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to account," the embassy said on Twitter.
In field developments, British military intelligence said that Russian forces have now completely withdrawn from northern Ukraine to Belarus and Russia.
The Ministry of Defense stated on Twitter that at least some of these Russian forces would be transferred to eastern Ukraine to fight in Donbass. She added that any major redeployment from the north would take at least a week.
The ministry said that the Russian bombing of cities in the east and south continues, and that the Russian forces advanced south from the city of Izyum, which is still under its control.
Simultaneously, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the bombing of a mercenary training center in Odessa with Bastion missiles, while two Ukrainian helicopters and 5 drones were shot down, and 81 Ukrainian military facilities were destroyed within one day.
On the ground, the governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Lugansk said today that Russia is massing its forces in eastern Ukraine, but has not penetrated the Ukrainian defenses.
This comes as Ukraine said it aims to create up to 10 humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians on Friday, but that civilians trying to escape from besieged Mariupol will have to use special vehicles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation in Borodianka, northwest of Kyiv that the Ukrainians had recently retaken from the Russians, was "much more terrible" than the situation in Bucha, where civilians were massacred.
The six-week-old war has forced more than 4 million Ukrainians to flee abroad, killing and wounding thousands, and displacing a quarter of the country's population.
It turned cities into ruins, and the military operation caused the West to impose restrictions targeting the Russian economy and the country's elites, and led to the imposition of a near total isolation on Russia.
Russia has previously admitted that its operation has not progressed as quickly as it wanted, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday expressed regret at the high death toll.
"We have heavy losses in the ranks of the troops. It is a great tragedy for us," Peskov told Sky News.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that the country's economy is facing the most difficult situation in three decades due to unprecedented Western sanctions.
Russia says it launched a "special military operation" on February 24 to disarm Ukraine and rid it of Nazi ideology, which Kyiv and its Western allies reject as a false justification.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and says the photos of the bodies in Bucha were fabricated to justify imposing further sanctions on Moscow and obstructing peace talks.
The Source
- Agencies