MOSCOW, April 8. /TASS/. At least 30 people were killed and around 100 other civilians were wounded after a Tochka-U missile hit the railway station in Kiev-controlled Kramatorsk on Friday. The Ukrainian side claimed that Russian troops were complicit in the missile strike. However, Tochka-U tactical missile systems are not operational either in Russia or in the Donbass republics.
TASS has gathered basic information on the incident.
What happened
- The missile strike was delivered against the railway station in Kramatorsk under the control of the Ukrainian army, from which the evacuation of civilians was underway.
- In the estimates of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), about 30 people were killed and around 100 others were wounded in the missile attack. Governor of the Donetsk region of Ukraine Pavel Kirilenko said that 39 people were killed.
- Fragments of a Tochka-U tactical missile were found at the scene.
- Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky also mentioned a Tochka-U missile that had been fired against Kramatorsk.
- Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said that he had issued instructions to open a criminal probe into the Ukrainian military’s provocation in Kramatorsk.
Who launched the missile
- The Ukrainian side immediately claimed that Russia was complicit in the incident. However, Russia’s Defense Ministry emphasized that Russian forces had no fire tasks and planned none for April 8 in Kramatorsk.
- Tochka-U tactical missile systems are actively used by the Ukrainian armed forces but are not operational in Russia or the Donbass republics. The Russian Defense Ministry highlighted that the photos from the Russia-Belarus Union Resolve 2022 military exercises being spread by Kiev show the hardware that does not belong to Russia.
- According to the data of the Russian Defense Ministry, the strike against the Kramatorsk railway station was delivered by a missile battalion of the Ukrainian armed forces from the community of Dobropolye 45 km southwest of the town.
- The DPR believes that the strike against the town was a provocation by the Ukrainian military. DPR Head Denis Pushilin condemned the missile strike as a war crime and warned that this was not the last provocation by the Ukrainian army.
- On March 14, a similar Tochka-U missile hit the center of Donetsk, killing 17 and wounding 36 other civilians.