Fleeing Ukraine women and children among the dozens dead in Russian strike on Kramatorsk train station

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 Telegram 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 parliament, Zelensky said Russian forces had fired “on an ordinary train station, on ordinary people, there were no soldiers”.

He later called for “a firm global reaction to this war crime” and vowed that an investigation would “establish every minute of who did what, who gave what orders, where the missile came from, who transported it, who gave the command and how this strike was agreed to.”

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 indiscriminately 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 missile, a fragmentation bomb,” a policeman said. “It explodes in several places over an area the size of a football pitch.”

A remnant from the rocket was embedded 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 condition, he added.

Footage showed civilians on the ground, surrounded by scattered luggage, a pram, toys and debris. One video uploaded to Telegram shows a woman screaming: “There are so many corpses, there are children, there are just children.” Iryna Venediktova, 43, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said 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 assistance. 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 Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile 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.