8 2GM Saturday April 9 2022 | the times
News
Russia was accused of “evil with no
limits” after a ballistic missile with the
words “For children” painted on its side
hit a crowded railway station yesterday
as mothers, children and the elderly
tried to flee eastern Ukraine.
At least 52 people, including five
children, were killed and dozens were
wounded, some losing limbs, when a
Tochka-U missile landed outside the
main station in the city of Kramatorsk.
The mayor said up to 4,000 people
had been waiting to leave after being
urged to flee before a Russian assault
expected within days.
President Zelensky condemned
Russia’s “evil with no limits”. He said
“Russian monsters” were responsible
for the carnage. In a post on his Tele-
gram channel he added: “If it is not
punished, it will never stop.”
He suggested it was part of a strategy
to destroy civilian targets, which have
included residential buildings, schools
and hospitals.
In a video address to Finland’s parlia-
ment, Zelensky said Russian forces had
fired “on an ordinary train station,
on ordinary people, there were no
soldiers”.
President Biden also condemned the
attack. He wrote on Twitter: “The
attack on a Ukrainian train station is
yet another horrific atrocity committed
by Russia, striking civilians who were
trying to evacuate and reach safety.”
The French government described it
as a crime against humanity.
A western official said the missile, a
Tochka-U, whose Nato reporting name
is SS-21 Scarab-B, was fired indiscrimi-
nately into the city centre.
Outside the station, four burnt-out
cars were next to the cordoned-off
remains of a rocket. “It’s a Tochka mis-
sile, a fragmentation bomb,” a police-
man said. “It explodes in several places
over an area the size of a football pitch.”
A remnant from the rocket was em-
bedded in grass near the station. The
Russian words “for children” could be
seen on its side. About 30 bodies, all in
civilian clothing, were placed under
plastic sheets next to a kiosk, the AFP
news agency reported.
The defence ministry in Moscow
denied its forces had been responsible
for the bombing.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of
Donetsk oblast, said at least 87 people
were wounded. Surgeons at the city
hospital were struggling to cope with
numerous victims in a critical condi-
tion, he added.
Video showed civilians on the
ground, surrounded by scattered lug-
gage, a pram, toys and debris. One
video uploaded to Telegram shows aRussia’s withdrawal from large areas of
western and northern Ukraine has en-
couraged many civilians to stay rather
than seeking safety elsewhere in
Europe, while others are already on
their way home.
Many of those who have crossed into
Poland, Moldova and other countries
on Ukraine’s western flank have said
that they wish to return to cities such as
Kyiv and Lviv when it is safe. With the
Kremlin refocusing its military efforts
in the east of Ukraine, the exodus has
slowed.
“There was one day last weekend
when actually there were more people
who went back into Ukraine than came
out and again that is a mixture of people
who are going to fight, and people who
are fed up of being away and are judging
that western Ukraine is safe enough to
go back to,” a western official said yes-
terday. The risk of an “unbelievably
bloody conflict” in southeast Ukraine
has many people on the move.
“They want to go back to Ukraine...
they want to remain close to the border
because they want to go back. Whether
the security situation allows for that is
the key unknown factor.”
Six weeks into the war the 20.24 train
to Kyiv from Warsaw East station in
Poland is a risky journey but remains
War exiles return to Kyiv
as Russian troops retreat
one of the only ways for Ukrainians to
slip back into the country.
For Anastasia Ovchinnikova, who in-
itially fled from Kyiv to Canada when
the war erupted, the risk is worth
taking. “I want to return to my home-
land. It is my country. I know it is terri-
ble there now, but it is mine,” she said.
She and fellow passengers on the
Ukrainian Railways service are deter-
mined to press on despite rumours that
trains are being stopped on other routes
and Kyiv’s mayor has warned residents
against returning too soon.
Ovchinnikova said: “Mentally, it’s
very hard to be elsewhere, apart from
my family. It is very difficult to be some-
where where you are nothing. It’s just
not your home.”
Ukrainians have thanked Poland for
its response to the refugee crisis but
building a new life takes a toll.
“In Poland, life is very hard. We don’t
have a job, we don’t have money, we
don’t have anything. People say there is
help available but it’s all just for the
media,” Roma Muhammad, 26, said.
Kate Chizhevsky, 28, a Russian anti-
Putin protester, had come to Warsaw
East to see off her Ukrainian friend’s
mother. Chizhevsky met Galina Petrus,
26, who will stay in Warsaw, online and
invited her to Poland. “She can stay as
long as she wants,” she said. “My house
is her house.”Paulina Olszanka Warsaw
West struggles
to send useful
weaponry
Foreign staffWestern countries are increasing their
weapons deliveries to Ukraine as the
country prepares for an expected Rus-
sian push to take Donbas in the east.
However, they are struggling to provide
weaponry compatible with Ukraine’s
antiquated artillery units, which date
from the Soviet era, according to
reports last night.
Ukraine requires more long-range
artillery to target the Russian forces
that have been relentlessly shelling its
cities in the past six weeks. Nato coun-
tries tend to use 155mm calibre;
Ukraine’s weapons use 152mm.
“The Ukrainians are running out of
152mm ammunition. Where are they
going to get it?” Chris Donnelly, an
adviser to four former Nato secretaries-
general on the Soviet and Russian mili-
tary, told the Financial Times.
“No one in the West uses it or makes
it apart from the Serbs — and they’re
on Russia’s side.”
Some Nato members, such as the
Czech Republic and Slovakia, have
been able to supply Ukraine with a
limited amount of Soviet-era weapon-
ry. However, when these supplies run
out, the West will need to provide more
modern weaponry.Women and children among the
News War in Ukraine
Larisa Brown Defence Editor woman screaming: “There
are so many corpses,
there are children,
there are just child-
ren.” Iryna Venedik-
tova, 43, Ukraine’s
prosecutor-gener-
al, said that the
missile strike was a
“crime against
humanity”.
Oleksander
Honcharenko, the
mayor of Kramatorsk,
said he was certain there
were no military targets
near the station. “Some people
have lost a leg, others an arm,” he said.
“They are now receiving medical assist-
ance. The hospitals are carrying out
about 40 operations simultaneously.”
Alexander Kamyshin, the head of
Ukraine’s railway network, said the
missile was a deliberate attack.
A witness named as Natalia told AFP
she was in the station at the time. “I
heard like a double explosion,” she said.
“I rushed to the wall for protection. I
saw people covered in blood coming
into the station and bodies everywhere
on the ground. I don’t know if they were
injured or dead.”
A soldier at one of the city’s three
hospitals told AFP that about 50
injured people had arrived. “Many of
them will die because they have lost a
lot of blood,” he said. “We don’t have
enough blood.”
Earlier in the week an airstrike had
blown up the railway line connecting
Kramatorsk with Slovyansk, another
threatened city.
About 700,000 civilians are trapped
in Donetsk and Luhansk, the provinces
that make up the Donbas region.
Western officials said Russia was trying
to bring thousands of soldiers to fight in
the region.
The official said, however, that
despite Russian troops outnumbering
the Ukrainian forces, it would be the
military tactics used that would decide
the outcome of the war.
The missile
The Tochka-U tactical
ballistic missile,
right, is less
accurate than the
newer and longer-
range Iskander.
Analysts believe
Russia has pulled
stocks of these out
of reserve, in part
for shorter-range
operations against
larger targets. The missile
is also the only type in use by
Ukrainian forces, meaning that
Russia can more easily attribute the
strikes as “false flag” if it so chooses,
according to the Sibylline
intelligence consultancy.
Western officials said the missile
had a range of about 75 miles. An
official said: “Firing a weapons
system which has got about a
30-metre circular area of probability
of its accuracy in an area like that is
going to cause significant
casualties.”
When cluster munitions are fired
from the Tochka-U part of the
system stays intact, which is why the
writing “for children” can be seen.woman scr
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