Russia admits it suffered ‘significant losses’ after invading Ukraine
A rocket attack killed at least 50 people Friday on a train station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine that was being used for civilian evacuations, a rescue worker said.
Blood was pooling on the ground and packed bags were strewn outside the building in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
The journalists said four cars next to the station had been destroyed and the remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian were lying adjacent to the main building. Bodies were later seen being loaded onto a military truck.
The head of Ukraine’s railway company, Alexander Kamyshin, wrote on social media earlier that “more than 30 people were killed and over 100 were injured” in the attack on the station. He said that two rockets hit the station.
“This is a deliberate attack on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of Kramatorsk,” Kamyshin said.
Kramatorsk was hit by Russian strikes earlier this week but had otherwise largely been spared the destruction witnessed by other east Ukraine cities since Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian authorities warned residents in the east of the country to flee westwards immediately in advance of an anticipated Russian attack.
While the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Russia as an “evil with no limits” after a rocket attack on an east Ukraine train station killed at least 50 people.
“They are cynically destroying the civilian population. This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media after the strikes on a hub that has been used by many civilians in recent days to flee an anticipated Russian advance.
Meanwhile, Russia has admitted to suffering a “significant loss” of troops and acknowledged its attack on Ukraine has not progressed as quickly as the Kremlin wanted, more than a month after president Vladimir Putin announced the invasion.
“We have significant losses of troops. It’s a huge tragedy for us,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Sky News on Thursday amid a steady pushback from Ukraine.
Although Moscow has refrained from giving out an exact number, Ukrainian authorities have claimed at least 18,900 Russian soldiers have been killed in combat as of Thursday, since the onset of the invasion on 24 February. Moscow’s unprovoked aggression has led to more than four million people leaving the country and has led to the killing or injuries of thousands. — Agencies
