RUSSIA and Ukraine continued to blame each other for a missile strike that killed scores at a railway station, as the leader of the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic said it was preparing to “intensify” its offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The row took place as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that “tens of thousands” had so far been killed in the besieged city of Mariupol and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there would be no pause in hostilities for or during peace talks.

Friday’s strike on the city of Kramatorsk saw a missile, thought to be a Tochka-U, fired on men, women and children as they prepared to evacuate. 

Ukrainian intelligence insisted that Moscow was to blame but Russia has denied firing the missile, which appeared to have been daubed with the words “for the children.”

Italian journalists say a serial number on the missile links it to the Ukrainian armed forces.

US publication Newsweek claimed last week that the Kremlin had changed its explanation of events.

It quoted a correspondent for the ANNA news agency as saying that Russian media initially claimed to have destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition train, yet after news of civilian casualties broke it blamed Ukraine. 

Russia says that it stopped using the Tochka-U missile system in late 2019. The same rocket has previously been used by Ukrainian forces, most recently in an attack on Donetsk on March 14 in which more than 20 people were killed. 

Battle continues to rage in Ukraine with reports of missiles continuing to strike major cities in the east of the country. 

Russian media reported that the leader of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Right Sector has been killed by its commandos.

Taras Bobanich was said to have been shot dead a few miles south of the city of Izium in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

He was accused of responsibility for the killing of hundreds of civilians in eastern Ukraine in 2014. 

Mr Bonanich’s death has also been confirmed by the Right Sector who said Mr Bobanich was killed last Friday. It described him as a “legendary nationalist.”

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer yesterday became the first EU leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 

Talks were described as “open and tough,” but it is not thought there was any breakthrough.