KYIV: Russian drones struck a passenger bus and a train in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing five people, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow pressed on with strikes on transport links and infrastructure.
A photo posted on Telegram by a regional governor showed a white vehicle with blown-out windows and a line of what appeared to be blood streaming down its side. ‘There is no military logic to this, just another act of brutality,’ Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media, urging the US and Europe to press ahead with toughening sanctions against Russia.
Moscow and Ukraine have traded escalating strikes in recent months on logistics and other economic targets, aimed at hampering each other’s war effort and damaging morale. With Ukraine’s airspace closed since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, buses and trains have become a vital transport link for ordinary Ukrainians and businesses. The drone attack on the passenger bus near the frontline city of Nikopol killed four men and a woman early on Wednesday, police said.
A further seven people were injured in the attack, said the governor of the surrounding Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Hanzha, who posted the photo.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the attack. Both Ukraine and Russia deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war, triggered by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
A Russian drone also attacked a passenger train in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, the acting regional governor said. All 168 passengers and crew were evacuated and no one was injured, Heorhii Reshetilov said on Telegram. The train was attacked twice more after the first strike, he said.-Reuters