KYIV: The death toll from an air strike on a train station in central Ukraine rose to 25 on Thursday, as the EU warned those “responsible for Russian rocket terror will be held accountable.”
The warning came as Russia issued a counter-claim saying it targeted soldiers and killed 200 Ukrainian servicemen in the attack Wednesday on a rail hub in Chaplyne city of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The attack struck six months to the day since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, which was also the day Ukraine celebrates its 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.
On Thursday, state rail operator Ukrainian Railways said the toll had risen overnight from 22 to 25 and included two children with a further 31 people injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned at the weekend Russia might do something “particularly cruel” to mark Ukraine’s independence celebrations.
Moscow claimed to have slain over 200 Ukrainian troops and 10 units of military equipment in the attack.
In a daily press briefing, the defense ministry said the train was “en route to combat zones” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which Russia seeks to fully control.
But EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “strongly” condemned “another heinous attack by Russia on civilians.”
“Those responsible for Russian rocket terror will be held accountable,” he said on Twitter.
Washington warned Wednesday that Moscow was preparing to hold “sham” polls in occupied areas of Ukraine that would seek to formalize its control.
“Russian leadership has instructed officials to begin preparing to hold sham referenda,” White House national security coordinator John Kirby said.
“We can see a Russian announcement of the first one or ones before the end of this week.”
