Ukraine expects fierce fighting in the Donbass in the next few days and is calling on the population to evacuate. Russian attacks on railway infrastructure make this difficult.
Destroyed cars in front of Kramatorsk railway station.
The evacuation of civilians was in full swing when two Russian rockets fell near the train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Friday morning. According to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kirilenko, the attack killed 50 people, including five children. The head of the Ukrainian railways, Olexander Kamischin, also spoke of more than a hundred injuries.
According to the mayor of the city in the Donetsk region, around 4,000 civilians were waiting at the station at the time of the explosion, mostly women, children and the elderly. The Kramatorsk train station is a hub from which special trains departed to take civilians to safety.
Russia denies responsibility for the missile attack. Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said on Friday that no deployments of Russian soldiers were planned in Kramatorsk for the day. Russia also claims that the type of missile struck in Kramatorsk is only used by Ukraine.
Videos and photos showed injured and killed civilians near the station. The NZZ verified these recordings. Another verified video shows a Tochka-U ballistic missile with the inscription “for the children” in Kramatorsk. This missile is used in war by both Ukrainian and Russian armies.
‘Not being able to defeat the Ukrainian army, Russians are cynically exterminating civilian population’, President Zelenskyy said. It is indeed very cynical: on their missile that killed children, Russians wrote ‘for children’ pic.twitter.com/VxCVxVriHh
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) April 8, 2022
Heavy fighting expected in eastern Ukraine
The attack on the Kramatorsk railway station coincided with a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from northern Ukraine. After the failed attack on Kyiv, Russia announced two weeks ago that it would shift the focus of its war efforts to the Donbass. The British Ministry of Defense assumes that some of the withdrawn troops will be relocated to eastern Ukraine. However, it will take at least a week before these units can be relocated to the east, according to the assessment.
Ukraine and NATO are therefore expecting fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine in the next few days. Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk called on all residents in the east of the country to evacuate on Wednesday. According to UN reports, more than 10 million Ukrainians have already fled their homes. Of these, 4.3 million have fled the country, while 6.5 million have found refuge inside Ukraine.
The Ukrainian railway transports many of these refugees. Millions of Ukrainians have already fled to the west of the country by train. At the height of the evacuation in early March, the railway brought 200,000 people to western Ukraine every day. Aid goods are also transported by rail.
Railway lines are attacked
Already on Thursday evening there was a Russian air raid on a railway overpass near the small town of Barwinkowe in eastern Ukraine. This is what the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhi Haidai, said Ukrainian news agency Interfax. Three special evacuation trains were blocked due to the attack. After a few hours, the trains could continue their journey, like that Ukrainian medium «Hromadske» reported on Friday night.
Since the outbreak of war, the Ukrainian railways have continued to work as best they can. Of the 230,000 people who work for them, almost all have stayed in the country and continued to do their jobs, railway chief Kamishin told the British newspaper «The Guardians». When rails were damaged by attacks, railroad workers immediately repaired them to keep transportation going.
While train stations in cities under Russian control are no longer served, trains continue to run to the east of the countryto evacuate civilians. But if, as predicted, intensified fighting soon breaks out in Donbass, the remaining civilians could be trapped in eastern Ukraine.
The port city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea shows how difficult it is to evacuate from hotly contested areas. For a week now, the International Red Cross has been trying to bring civilians out of the largely destroyed city in a convoy, but has so far been unable to gain access. On Friday, the governor of the Donetsk region also announced that no aid could be delivered to the city.