Over 200 Ukrainian troops killed in rail strike: Russia

The Russian defence ministry said that the train was ‘en route to combat zones’ in the eastern Donbas region

The toll from a Russian strike on a train station in the town of Chaplyne, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine rose to 25 overnight, the state rail operator said. | Photo Credit: AFP

Russia's defence ministry said August 25 that it killed over 200 Ukrainian troops in a railway station attack in central Ukraine that Kyiv said left 25 people, including children, dead.

"As a result of a direct hit by an Iskander missile on a military train at the Chaplyne railway station in the Dnipropetrovsk region, more than 200 servicemen of the reserve of Ukraine's Armed Forces and 10 units of military equipment were destroyed," the ministry said in its daily briefing.

It added that the train was "en route to combat zones" in the eastern Donbas region that Moscow seeks to fully control.

The Eorpean Union has condemned the "heinous" attack on civilians that was carried out on the day Ukraine marked Independence Day and six months since the start of Moscow's military intervention.

Ukraine's railways have been vital in the effort to evacuate vast swathes of the country since Moscow sent in troops.

In April, a rocket attack on a station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk killed at least 57 civilians as they waited on the platform to be transported west to safety.