(Reuters) – The governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Thursday accused Russian forces of firing cluster munitions at a rail station in the city of Kramatorsk in an attack that killed at least 39 people.
Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko published a photograph online showing several bodies on the ground beside piles of suitcases and other luggage, but did not share what evidence he had of the type of weapon used for the attack. Reuters was not immediately able to verify his allegation.
“If at the beginning they exclusively … targeted railway tracks, then now it’s not only tracks, but also firing a missile containing cluster munitions which are meant for people. This is absolute confirmation that this (strike) was intended against civilians,” Kyrylenko said in an online briefing.
Russia denies targeting civilians. The Russian defence ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine’s military and that Russia’s armed forces did not have any targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Catherine Evans)
