A Russian general believed to be behind the horrific shelling of a railway station full of women and children, has been reportedly named.
The missile attack killed at least 52 people in Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk with images showing bodies lying amidst scattered luggage and the rubble of the station.
Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov is likely to be behind the attack on civilians that left around 300 people injured, Western officials reportedly believe.
Women, children and the elderly were seen running for safety moments after what is thought to have been a short-range ballistic missile that was aimed at the station.
The remains of the missile was also found nearby and had the words “for the children” written in Russian on the side.
The Daily Mail reported that Dvornikov was probably behind the attack and was also a military leader who oversaw widespread destruction in Syria.
Ukraine called for more weapons and harsher sanctions following the attack using cluster weapons on people fleeing the conflict in the east of the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was a deliberate attack on civilians with the city's mayor estimating about 4,000 people were gathered there at the time.
The United States, the European Union and Britain condemned the incident which took place on the same day European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv to show solidarity and accelerate Ukraine's membership process.
"We expect a firm global response to this war crime," Zelenskiy said in a video posted late on Friday.
"Any delay in providing... weapons to Ukraine, any refusals, can only mean the politicians in question want to help the Russian leadership more than us," he said, calling for an energy embargo and all Russian banks to be cut off from the global system.
Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile containing cluster munitions, which explode in mid-air, spraying small lethal bomblets over a wider area.
Moscow's more than six-week long incursion has seen over 4 million people flee abroad, killed or injured thousands, left a quarter of the population homeless and turned cities into rubble as it drags on for longer than Russia expected.
Cluster munitions are banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it but has previously denied using such armaments in Ukraine.
In Washington, a senior defence official said the United States was "not buying the denial by the Russians that they weren't responsible", and believed Russian forces had fired a short-range ballistic missile in the attack.
The Russian defence ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine's military and that Russia's armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on February 24 in what Russia calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.
Kyiv and Western supporters call that a pretext for an unprovoked invasion.
Ukrainian officials now expect an attempt by Russian forces to gain full control of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk, both partly held by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
The Kremlin said on Friday the "special operation" could end in the "foreseeable future" with its aims being achieved through work by the Russian military and peace negotiators.
The White House said it would support attempts to investigate the attack in Kramatorsk, which Boris Johnson said showed "the depths to which Putin's vaunted army has sunk."
