Russia Ukraine war, page-49807

‘Before the Attack
On April 7, the day prior to the strike on the Kramatorsk station, the chairman of the board of the Ukrainian railroads Oleksandr Kamyshin wrote on Telegram that a Russian airstrike at Barvinkove station in the neighbouring Kharkiv region had blocked trains evacuating civilians from Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Later that night, Kamyshin reported that the obstacle had been cleared and that the affected trains were able to complete their journeys.

That same day, a popular Russian pro-war Telegram channel advised civilians evacuating the two cities against travelling by rail, likely in light of the air strike.

On the morning of April 8, at 10:13 am Kyiv time, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed in a Telegram post that it had carried out “air-based” missile strikes against materiel for Ukrainian military reserves arriving at Pokrovsk, Slovyansk and Barvinkove railway stations. In the minutes that followed, local Telegram channels in non-government controlled areas of the Donetsk region were flooded with footage of missile launches.

Less than 20 minutes later, reportsemerged that Kramatorsk was under fire. By 10:44 am, Kamyshin announced on his Telegram channel that two missiles had struck the Kramatorsk railway station.

At 11:01 am Dmitry Steshin, a correspondent for the pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, posted a video to his Telegram channel adding that explosions had been heard 10 minutes prior at the Kramatorsk railway station, apparently targeted at a large group of Ukrainian soldiers. The fact that Steshin deleted the post shortly afterwards did not go unnoticed by journalists.’