At least 50 people, including five children, were killed in strikes on a train station in the east Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the local governor said Friday.

"Fifty dead, five of them children. This is the death toll at this hour after the strike by Russian occupational forces on the train station in Kramatorsk," Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said on Telegram. 

He warned that the number of victims is likely to change, saying there are still 98 people wounded, including 16 children. 

Kyrylenko said 12 of the victims died from their wounds in hospital, while 38 were killed "on the spot."

"The occupiers must be punished for their crimes," he said. 

The attack on the train station came on Friday morning, when hundreds gathered, waiting to be evacuated out of east Ukraine where a renewed Russian offensive looms. 

The attack was one of the deadliest in Ukraine since the Kremlin launched its invasion of the country at the end of February. 

Russia denied carrying out the strike, accusing Ukraine of staging it.