MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine
The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Similar articles

Russia bombs Kramatorsk station killing dozens of civilians trying to flee its invasion Russians bomb tracks but fail to prevent evacuation trains carrying civilians fleeing from Donbas At least 50 Ukrainians were burned to death in Russia’s bombing of Mariupol hospitals Russian FSB produce ‘refugee’ propaganda video blaming Ukrainian soldiers for Russia's war crimes in Mariupol Russia continues bombing Mariupol while producing propaganda videos about its ‘humanitarian aid’Russia responds to International Court order to stop bombing Ukraine by destroying Mariupol Theatre sheltering familiesRussian invaders take Mariupol intensive care hospital and its patients hostage Mass graves of the Ukrainian civilians Russia claims it is not killingTerror and abductions as Russia tries to break Ukrainian resistance in Kherson and other occupied citiesUkrainian journalist Oleh Baturin feared abducted by Russian invaders in Kherson oblast Mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov abducted after refusing to collaborate with the Russian invaders Russian priest arrested and prosecuted for sermon opposing Russia’s war against Ukraine Russia effectively admits it deliberately bombed the maternity hospital in Mariupol that killed three patients, including a childRussia brings grotesque propaganda to Berdiansk after Ukrainian journalists refuse to collaborate Russian invaders murder Ukrainian volunteers Impassioned appeal from Ukrainian Muslim leader in face of Russia’s war to destroy Ukraine Russia is forcing Ukrainians from occupied Crimea and Donbas to fight in its invasion of Ukraine Children among the dead after Russian invaders opened fire on fleeing civilians Russia installs its propaganda TV after seizing Kherson and imposes 15-year sentences for reporting its invasion of UkraineUkrainian survivors of the Holocaust demand Putin and Russia get out of Ukraine
• Topics / War crimes

Pro-Kremlin sites initially boasted of Russia’s Kramatorsk bombing that killed 52 civilians, including children

09.04.2022   
Halya Coynash
As with MH17 in 2014, Russian propaganda channels on Telegram boasted of the bombing before quickly editing their texts as the enormity of Russia’s war crime became clear.

Kramatorsk after the missiles struck Photo from Censor.net

Russia has done it again.  Just as immediately after the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 by a Russian Buk missile on 17 July 2014, Russian propaganda channels effectively admitted that Russia was responsible for the airstrike on Kramatorsk Railway Station on 8 April that killed at least 52 civilians.  They positively boasted of the act, before quickly editing their texts as the enormity of Russia’s war crime became clear.

Numerous Telegram channels, including Siloviki.ru [from the word for the security and other enforcement bodies] immediately reported that “their sources in Kramatorsk” had informed of a strike in the area of the railway station, and that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had brought a lot of military equipment and ammunitions to the station the day before, with this the aim of the strike. 

It rapidly became clear that the two missiles had killed a huge number of civilians at the station, where around 4 thousand people were gathered, most of them trying to flee before the feared Russian invasion.  Siloviki.ru now follows the official Moscow line, that this was a strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and claims that the Ukrainian authorities “very actively tried to blame the Russian forces” but that this has supposedly been a fiasco.

The only fiasco, in fact, is with Russia’s claim that it had nothing to do with the airstrikes, and not least because of the initial boasting by sites which closely follow the regime’s line.  There are a considerable number of screenshots (here and, at the bottom, here, for example), demonstrating the initial admission of Russian guilt.  There are attempts to claim that all of this was a diabolical plot, with the airstrike followed by pro-Kremlin channels being fed a fake so that they boasted a success. 

Russians are currently being detained for standing outside with a piece of paper saying ‘Two words’ (in code for the prohibited No War) and there is no chance of hearing the truth on any Russian channel.  It is, unfortunately, likely that those Russians who glean all of their information from the state media and who have a vested interest in not believing their country to be guilty of such war crimes, will give credence to such Ukrainian ‘provocation’ claims.   There is nothing to suggest that the international community will see the carnage in Kramatorsk on 8 April as anything but the latest in an appalling series of attacks on civilians in Ukraine. 

Russia has tried to claim that it has long replaced Tochka-U missiles with newer models.  This is refuted by InformNapalm which has provided video footage demonstrating that such missiles are still being used.

Russia had already, on 7 April, bombed railway tracks near Barvenkove Station in the Donetsk oblast, damaging the only exit by which three evacuation trains were due to take civilians away from Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Lyman.  It remains to be seen whether pro-Kremlin channels will claim that this too was part of Ukraine’s ‘plot’ to kill its own citizens, while blaming Russia, which has been doing little else but targeting Ukrainian civilians since 24 February.

On Friday evening, Pavlo Kyrylenko, Governor of the Donetsk oblast, stated that the death toll from the airstrike on the Kramatorsk Railway Station now stands at 52, with five children among those killed.  It was earlier reported that 98 people were in hospital.  He also reported that five other civilians had been killed by the Russians in the Donetsk oblast, including a family of four in Avdiivka.

 Share this