At least 33 people were killed and 18 injured when a Russian glide bomb struck a crowded bus stop in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Thursday morning, Ukrainian officials said, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the war this year.
Two city buses were in service near the bus stop when the bomb struck, setting both buses on fire, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the bomb hit the bus stop at around 10 a.m. Images released by police showed bodies strewn across the debris-littered street and the charred shell of a bus, and police said Russian drones targeted officers who were helping the victims.
Kramatorsk’s city council called the attack a “horrific crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population,” saying the bomb struck a location where there were “absolutely no military targets.”
“For them (the Russians), a bus with passengers is an attractive target precisely because one strike can kill as many people as possible,” said Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration.
Filashkin ordered all public transport in Kramatorsk and nearby Sloviansk to stop and urged residents to move to safer regions. “I urge everyone who remains in the Donetsk region to evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Russia denies targeting civilians.
The attack follows an escalation of Russian drone and guided-bomb strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Ukraine’s eastern “fortress belt” in the Donetsk region, a key stronghold that Moscow is seeking to seize. Separately on Thursday, three people were killed and 14 wounded in morning drone strikes on the capital Kyiv, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
This is a developing story.
Sources: The Times, CNN, AFP.
