A Russian glide bomb killed dozens of Ukrainians at a bus stop in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Thursday, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent months.
Two buses were hit by the bomb during rush hour, killing at least 30 people and injuring 18, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. A separate attack nearby killed another three people, authorities said.
“Some of those killed have still not been identified because of the severity of their injuries,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Many of those injured in the attack were fighting for their lives, he said, warning that the death toll may rise.
The strike came after Zelenskyy told the FT last week that Vladimir Putin had instructed his generals to abandon all rules of war in Ukraine. Deliberately targeting civilians is considered a war crime under international law.
Russia has used aerial bombs since its full-scale invasion in 2022, launching them from behind the front line to destroy entire buildings.
“Russia is systematically destroying Kramatorsk and terrorising civilians,” Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, wrote on X.
Regional governor Vadym Filashkin said in a post on Telegram that the victims “are not ‘the consequences of war’, nor dry statistics. These are people killed by the Russian army.”
He said that public transport in Kramatorsk and the neighbouring city of Slovyansk had been suspended because of the threat of Russian attacks.
The bus stop bombing came a day after a wave of Russian missiles and drones killed at least 28 people across Ukraine, including 22 in an attack on an apartment building in Pryluky, about 150km east of Kyiv.
The building suffered a direct hit from a Russian missile, burying residents beneath debris. Dozens of injured people were pulled out by rescuers — as were the lifeless bodies of four children. In Kyiv, three people were killed in Wednesday’s strikes, the capital’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The combined death toll from Russian strikes over the past day and a half has risen to at least 64 people.
On Thursday, sirens howled throughout Kyiv as explosions from Russian drone strikes and Ukrainian air defence interceptions shook the city’s buildings. A blanket of dense black smoke was visible over the capital around midday.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy operator, said that it had imposed power cuts in Kyiv and the surrounding region after Russian strikes hit its energy facilities for a second straight day.
Video description
The aftermath of a Russian attack on a bus stop in the eastern city of Kramatorsk
Zelenskyy told the FT Putin was also increasing his attacks on civilians because the Russian army had failed to achieve its military goals on the battlefield.
Ukrainian forces have made gains along the eastern frontline in the Donbas in recent weeks, thwarting Russian efforts to encircle Kramatorsk and nearby cities that make up Ukraine’s “fortress belt”, according to military analysts who track the war.
“Over the month of September, the Russian net gains were negative 190km²,” the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which tracks the war, reported last week. “This marks the greatest monthly net territorial loss for Russia in our dataset since the June of 2023.”
Zelenskyy said last week the counteroffensive, dubbed Operation Vivaldi, had liberated some 125-140 sq km of territory.
Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up the remaining 25 per cent of the Donbas region still under its control to even begin peace talks. US President Donald Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff have also pushed Kyiv to hand over the land in order to bring Putin back to the negotiating table.
But Zelenskyy has insisted that territorial concessions are a red line for Kyiv and said that giving the Donbas to Russia would only aid Putin’s army in its broader goal of launching attacks deeper inside Ukraine to bring it to heel. Ukrainian polling throughout the war has supported his stance.
On Thursday, while visiting Pryluky with UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband, Zelenskyy said his negotiating team would travel this week to the US to meet Trump’s team to discuss strategy around peace negotiations. The Ukrainian leader also called on the US to increase pressure on Putin to end his war.