Thousands of people had gathered at Kramatorsk station, according to the mayor, on their way to safer areas. Kramatorsk is one of the easternmost cities in Ukraine that can still be reached by train, and is therefore an important evacuation spot.
The city is located in the Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine. That is in the Donbas region, where heavy fighting is taking place between Russian troops and pro-Russian separatists. “Ukraine is not doing so well in this region,” said defense expert Rob de Wijk in an interview with RTL Z.
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The Russian army is trying to cut off eastern Ukraine, says De Wijk, and is also shooting at civilians. “It’s really terrible. They don’t want people to leave there, and they try to make the slaughter as big as possible. Civilians are really trapped.”
Infrastructure attacked
The Russian army is not afraid to hit civilian targets, says correspondent Eva Hartog. “We see that in all kinds of places. Russia says it only focuses on military targets, but there is now enough evidence that civilian targets are also being attacked.”
But the Ukrainian railway and Kramatorsk station are also strategic targets, Hartog says. “Russia’s goal is to bring Ukraine to its knees. For that, all infrastructure is attacked, because the longer Ukraine has their affairs in order, the longer they can last, and the more annoying it is for Russia.”
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Moreover, the railway is used to transport heavy war material from Europe, says De Wijk. “So we will see more attacks like this on the railways.”
Prolonged conflict
De Wijk thinks that Russia has too few troops to conquer eastern Ukraine. “They are trying to strengthen that with soldiers from Syria, or from private companies. They are also training 60,000 men to launch a major offensive. The battle is really not over here.”
Both Russia and Ukraine are therefore not giving up for the time being. “Ultimately, there must be a ceasefire and negotiations can take place,” says De Wijk. “But the problem is always to choose the right moment for that. Ukraine thinks it can still be successful. If that is no longer possible, then it is too late and you have lost those areas. Then you will face a long conflict, and the outcome is not very different in the end.”
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Russia completely denies attack
According to the Kremlin, something very different happened in Kramatorsk, says correspondent Eva Hartog. “The Russian Defense Ministry completely denies that those missiles were Russian. It is said that the Ukrainians staged it to defame Russia.”
“According to the Russian ministry, Ukraine is using civilians as human shields, and is therefore trying to prevent people from fleeing,” Hartog said. “So they are spinning this incident that way, confirming the story that Ukraine is sacrificing its own citizens.”
‘For the children’
A rocket part found in Kramatorsk read ‘za detej’, meaning ‘for the children’. “The idea is that it’s a kind of Russian battle cry and Russia wants to save the children there,” Hartog says. Russia says it wants to ‘liberate’ the areas in eastern Ukraine.
“According to the Ukrainians, that is purely cynical, because children were also killed in the attack. But Russia also says that it was staged. There is no proof yet of who that missile was and who wrote that text. Also here So the information war is in full swing: both sides have completely different stories about the same incident.”
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