KYIV — At least 33 people were killed and 18 others injured on Thursday when a Russian strike caused two public buses to catch fire in eastern Ukraine, authorities said.
The attack in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region, prompted authorities there to shut down the public transport system and urge people to move to safer parts of the country.
“Once again, the Russians have struck a location where there is definitely no military target. A public bus. Civilian transport. People who were simply going about their business,” the Kramatorsk City Council wrote in a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed that the strike “will not go unanswered.”
“Russia is trying to destroy all life in Donbas, and a response from the world is a must. A forceful response – exactly as the Russians deserve for all the deaths they have brought,” he wrote on X.
“The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians,” said Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration. “For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target precisely because a single strike can kill as many people as possible.”
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES) said the Russian strike caused a fire on two buses and in the surrounding area. Rescue workers were at the scene to help survivors and extinguish the blaze, the SES added.
Filashkin said he had ordered the suspension of public transportation in the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the wake of the attack and called on civilians to move to safer areas. “I urge everyone who remains in the Donetsk region to evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine,” he said.
“Russia is bringing death to Ukrainian soil. It is striking our cities, killing our people, and multiplying its crimes every day,” added Filashkin as he offered his condolences to the families and loved ones of victims.
A mass Russian missile attack on Kyiv in July killed 33 people across the city in a coordinated barrage. Yet Thursday’s attack marks the highest death toll this year from a single strike.
Both Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are crucial industrial cities close to the front line. Together with nearby Kostiantynivka and Druzhkivka, they form the core of Ukraine’s remaining “fortress belt” in the Donetsk region.
Kramatorsk has long served as a strategic rear point for the Ukrainian units serving along the eastern front – and as a place to which exhausted troops could retreat for a few days of rest before their next mission. But a press officer with Ukraine’s 93rd mechanized brigade told CNN last month that is no longer an option due to frequent shelling.
Two bodies were also found following a drone strike on a store in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district on Thursday, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Two people were also injured in the strike on the four-story building, he added. Search and rescue operations are ongoing.
Earlier on Thursday, Klitschko reported that one person had died and 11 had been injured in Russian attacks on Kyiv.
Russia launched 142 drones at Ukraine overnight, per Ukraine’s air force.
“According to preliminary data, as of 9:30 am, air defences had shot down or neutralised 126 enemy UAVs of the Shahed and Gerber types, as well as other types of drones,” the force said in a post on social media, adding that strikes were recorded at seven locations.
The fortress belt has slowly eroded over the past four and a half years. Its southernmost anchor, Kostyantynivka, has now been effectively lost as a stronghold.
Source: Saudi Gazette