Russian Missile Kills Dozens Of Refugees At Kramatorsk Train Station, Ukrainian Foreign Minister: This Was A Deliberate Massacre

Refugees' belongings are scattered at the site of a Russian missile attack at Kramatorsk Station. (Twitter/@DmytroKuleba)

JAKARTA - Dozens of civilian refugees waiting to be evacuated at the Kramatorsk Station were killed when a Russian missile hit them, injuring about a hundred others, on Friday.

At least 39 people died Friday when two rockets hit a train station in a crowded eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities said, as the region braced for a major Russian offensive. Reuters could not immediately verify the information coming from the city of Kramatorsk.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said thousands of civilians were at the station at the time the rockets struck, in what he described as a deliberate strike. Many of the injured were in serious condition, he said.

"They want to sow panic and fear, they want to take as many civilians as possible," he said.

Kyrylenko published a photo online showing several bodies on the ground, alongside piles of suitcases and other belongings. Reuters could not immediately verify the photo.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there were no Ukrainian troops at the station. "Russian troops (shoot) at ordinary train stations, at ordinary people, there are no soldiers there," he told the Finnish parliament in a video speech.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleb condemned the attack, saying he would ensure war criminals are brought to justice to be held accountable for their actions.

"The Russians know that the train station in Kramatorsk is full of civilians waiting to be evacuated. But they attacked it with ballistic missiles, killing at least 30 people and wounding at least a hundred. This was a deliberate massacre. We will bring every war criminal to justice, Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Ukraine's military general staff said on Friday Russian forces were focused on capturing the besieged southeastern port of Mariupol, fighting near the eastern city of Izyum and a breakthrough by Ukrainian forces near Donetsk.

Separately, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the "indiscriminate attack" in Kramatorsk. "This is another attempt to close the escape routes for those fleeing war and this unjustified cause," he said on Twitter.

Russia's defense ministry was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have hit the station were only used by the Ukrainian military. The Russian armed forces had no targets set in Kramatorsk on Friday.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians since it invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a "special military operation", to demilitarize and denazify its neighbour. Ukrainian and Western supporters have called it a pretext for an unprovoked invasion.