KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — A Russian glide bomb struck two passenger buses in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Thursday morning, killing at least 30 people and wounding 18, Ukrainian officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians this year, BBC News, The Guardian and DW reported.
The Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said the vehicles were hit at 10 a.m. by an aerial bomb near a dental clinic on Yuvileina Street; one bus was reduced to a charred shell and a second caught fire. Three more people were killed in the nearby village of Bilenke. Prosecutors opened an investigation into a suspected war crime. Regional governor Vadym Filashkin accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilian transport: “For them, a bus with passengers is an attractive target precisely because one strike can kill as many people as possible,” he said, according to DW. All public transport in Kramatorsk and neighboring Sloviansk was suspended.
“This strike will not go without our response,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram, according to the BBC. “Russia is trying to destroy all life in Donbas, and the world needs to react to this.” He urged allies to supply anti-ballistic systems and interceptors. Moscow did not immediately comment.
The strike came a day after a missile destroyed a five-story apartment block in Pryluky, where the death toll rose to 22, including five children. Russian strikes on Kyiv on Thursday killed three people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, and emergency power outages were ordered in the capital, the Associated Press reported via NPR. Kramatorsk and Sloviansk form part of the “fortress belt,” the last major cities in northern Donetsk under full Ukrainian control. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, visiting Kyiv, announced new sanctions on Russia.
Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, DW, Associated Press (via NPR)
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