China has expressed disapproval about the deaths of civilians in a missile strike on a train station in Ukraine last week but stopped short of condemning Russia outright for the attack.
On Friday, at least 50 passengers, including five children, were killed in an attack at Kramatorsk. The railway station in the Donbass region had been used to evacuate civilians from areas under Russian bombardment.
A missile shell found at the site had “for the children” written in Russian on it, according to images and video taken in the aftermath, which also showed bodies on platform benches and bloodied belongings including toys and a pram. The city mayor had estimated that there were about 4,000 people at the train station — all trying to evacuate — when Russians started shelling.
Dai Bing, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said during a UN Security Council session on Monday that “China deplores the killing and injuring of dozens of civilians, including women and children, caused by the Kramatorsk train station attack”.
“The relevant circumstances and specific causes of the incident must be established, and any accusations should be based on facts,” he said.
A US defence official had said over the weekend that the Pentagon believes Russian forces used an SS-21 Scarab missile in the attack, which is known as the Tochka in former Soviet states.
However, Russian officials have denied the station attack and said Moscow no longer uses the Tochka missiles.
Ukraine’s envoy to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said: “I will not develop the false theory that Russia does not possess Tochka-U, including because Russia deployed many Tochka-U’s in the territory of Belarus.”
He also referred to reports from pro-Kremlin news outlets that were later deleted that had alleged a successful strike against Ukrainian troops at the Kramatorsk train station.
Mr Kyslytsya said that the reports were “deleted immediately after the information on the real outcomes of the strike appeared”.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting non-combatants. However, the UN estimates that 1,611 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far in the conflict, noting that the true figure is likely to be much higher.
Though China on Monday frowned on the attack, it once again did not condemn Russian actions in Ukraine.
On Thursday, it voted against a successful measure in the UN General Assembly to oust Moscow from the UN Human Rights Council.
Last week, a top US state department official, Wendy Sherman, warned president Xi Jinping of “what might come his way” if China supports Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
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