Death Toll At Ukrainian Station Rises To 25, Russia Claims Hit Military Train With Iskander Missile

The impact of the Russian rocket attack on the Chaplyne train station on the anniversary of Ukrainian Independence August 24. (Twitter/@DmytroKuleba)

JAKARTA - Russia's Defense Ministry acknowledged the attack on the Ukrainian train station on the Independence Day yesterday, calling it a military target while the death toll was rising.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Thursday its troops had attacked a railway station in eastern Ukraine, confirming an attack that Kyiv said also hit residential areas in the vicinity of the station.

In its daily briefing, Russia's Defense Ministry said an Iskander missile hit a military train on Wednesday at the Chaplyne station, which it said was used to deliver weapons to Ukrainian troops on the front lines in the eastern Donbas region.

"As a result of the direct attack of the Iskander missile on the military train at the Chaplyne railway station in the Dnipropetrovsk region, more than 200 reservists of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 10 units of military equipment were destroyed, en route to the combat zone in Donbas," the ministry said in a statement, as quoted by the BBC.

Separately, Ukrainian Assistant to the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko said 21 people were killed when the attack hit the train station and burned five train cars.

Meanwhile, a boy was killed when a missile hit his house in the vicinity. The death toll rose to 25 on Thursday, after three more bodies were retrieved from the rubble, he said.

It is known that Chaplyne's attack and artillery shelling of front-line towns, including Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Nikopol and Dnipro, followed the commemoration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, during and around the Independence Day of Ukraine.