More than 30 people have been killed and over 100 wounded in a Russian rocket attack on a railway station in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials.
Thousands of civilians were at Kramatorsk railway station trying to evacuate to safer regions in the war-ravaged country, the governor of the Donetsk region said.
The Kremlin has denied that Russia carried out the strike, citing its defence ministry.
Moscow has claimed the type of missile used in the attack is only deployed by Ukraine’s military, adding that Ukrainian forces used it on a strike in the centre of Donetsk in March.
And Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian forces had no missions scheduled for Kramatorsk on Friday.
It comes as Russian forces in the north have fully withdrawn from Ukraine as focus shifts further to the east of the country, according to British military intelligence.
Ukraine news live: Putin spokesman’s admission prompts shock
Further west towards Kyiv, more than 300 people have been reportedly killed by Russian forces in Bucha – 50 of whom were executed.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians and said verified images of bodies in the town were staged by the Ukrainian government to derail peace negotiations.
But just 15 miles (25km) down the road, a similar situation is unfolding in Borodyanka, according to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Key developments:
- Rocket attack on Kramatorsk railway station leaves more than 30 dead, local officials say
- Australia sends armoured vehicles to Ukraine
- Ukraine asks NATO leaders for ‘weapons, weapons and weapons’
- Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denies war crimes
- US sanctions Russian military shipbuilding and diamond mining companies
‘They wanted to sow panic and fear’
Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of carrying out a deadly rocket attack on a railway station where thousands of civilians had been trying to flee to safety, with more than 30 people reported to have been killed.
More than 100 people are feared wounded in the blast at Kramatorsk station in the northern portion of Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said: “The ‘Rashists’ (‘Russian fascists’) knew very well where
they were aiming and what they wanted: they wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible”.
Russia did not immediately comment on the reports of the attack and the casualty toll. Moscow has denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine.
Russia guilty of ‘heinous crimes’, says Ukraine’s president
In his nightly presidential address, Mr Zelenskyy said the amount of damage and killings in Borodyanka was becoming clearer.
“The work on dismantling the debris in Borodyanka began… It’s much worse there,” he said.
“Even more victims of the Russian occupiers.
“And what will happen when the world learns the whole truth about what the Russian military did in Mariupol? There, on almost every street, is what the world saw in Bucha and other towns in the Kyiv region after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
“The same cruelty. The same heinous crimes.”
He did not provide any further evidence, or details, about Russian killings in the town.
Russian forces pulled out of Bucha last week, under pressure from Ukrainian forces, but relief at their departure soon turned to grief as the scale of killings in the town became apparent.
They have been widely condemned by the West as war crimes, building pressure for stricter sanctions against Russia.
Satellite imagery shows bodies lying in a street for weeks and many have been found with their hands tied behind their backs, suggesting they were executed.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said it aimed to establish up to ten humanitarian corridors to evacuate trapped civilians on
Friday, but that civilians trying to flee besieged Mariupol will have to use private vehicles.
It comes as Russian forces in the north have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia, according to British military intelligence.
Many of these forces will require “significant replenishment” before being ready to deploy further east, with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Friday.
Images from Bucha ‘staged’ says Russia
The war has now entered its seventh week and seen millions flee Ukraine, thousands killed, thousands injured and once-thriving cities have been reduced to rubble.
Moscow says one of the aims of its military campaign is to “liberate” largely Russian-speaking places such as the southern port of Mariupol from the threat of genocide by Ukrainian nationalists, who it says have used civilians as human shields.
However, these claims have been widely rejected as a baseless pretext for Russia’s invasion.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, speaking in his first broadcast interview with British media since the invasion started, told Sky News the images coming out of Bucha were a “well-staged insinuation, nothing else”.
Dmitry Peskov told Sky’s Mark Austin that “we’re living in days of fakes and lies” and the verified photos and satellite images of dead civilians in the streets of Ukrainian cities were a “bold fake”.
“We deny the Russian military can have something in common with these atrocities and that dead bodies were shown on the streets of Bucha,” he told Sky News.
Analysis: Kremlin admits the price of war but won’t face alleged war crimes
‘A catalogue of Russian lies’
Critics accused Mr Peskov of “inhabiting a parallel universe” and peddling a “catalogue of lies”.
Tom Tugendhat MP, chairman of the Foreign Affair Committee called the interview a “catalogue of lies” from an “extraordinary administration” known for its “deception and fraud”.
Christopher Steele, the former head of the Russia desk at MI6 accused Russian leaders of “living in an Alice in Wonderland world”.
He said the issue is whether Mr Peskov and his colleagues “actually believe what they’re saying, or if they don’t and they’re just being cynical.
“Because if they do believe it, I think we’ve got a real problem moving forward at all with any negotiations.”
Russia suspended from Human Rights Council
In a symbolic move, the United Nations General Assembly suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday, expressing “grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis”.
Mr Zelenskyy called this an “important step” as he urged the West to continue its “coordinated pressure” on the Kremlin.
He said: “The Russian state and the Russian military are the greatest threat on the planet to freedom, to human security, to the concept of human rights as such. After Bucha, this is already obvious.”
Follow the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
Russia is only the second country to have its membership rights stripped at the rights council.
The other, Libya, was suspended in 2011 by the assembly when upheaval in the country brought down Muammar Gaddafi.