Russian attack on bus kills at least 30 people near Ukraine frontline

Original article by Luke Harding

A Russian missile strike on a bus in the eastern city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 30 people, officials have said, in one of the worst attacks by Moscow on Ukrainian civilians this year.

The regional prosecutor’s office in the Donetsk region said on Thursday the vehicle had been hit at 10am by an aerial bomb. “As of now, the death toll from this morning’s attack has risen to 30. Eighteen people were wounded,” it said, adding that all local public transport had been suspended.

Images ​posted by police ‌showed bodies ‌strewn across a street littered with debris, as well ‌as a charred shell of what appeared to be a bus. A second bus had also caught fire, officials said. The strike targeted an area next to a dental clinic on the city’s Yuvileina Street.

Three people had also been killed by shelling in the village of Bilenke, outside Kramatorsk, they added. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin had deliberately targeted an “ordinary public transport stop”.

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Some of those killed could not be identified because of the severity of their injuries, Ukraine’s president added. He said the number of victims could “sadly rise”, as doctors fought to save the lives of those wounded.

He said: “This 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. May all those killed rest in peace.”

The bombing follows a gruesome Russian strike on Wednesday on a five-storey block of flats in Pryluky in the northern Chernihiv region. The building collapsed, entombing those inside. At least 22 people were killed, including five children, aged between one and eight.

Visiting the scene with Ed Miliband, the British foreign secretary, Zelenskyy urged the US to expand Starlink satellite internet coverage so that Ukraine could hit targets inside Russia such as launch sites. So far, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have refused Kyiv’s request.

Miliband said there was “no clearer sign of Putin’s evil, evil intent and strategy in this conflict” than this week’s murderous attacks. He said: “Putin once said that he was going to win on the battlefield. He is trying to win by terrorising civilians.”

Writing earlier on social media, Zelenskyy called on western allies to take “concrete steps” to boost Ukraine’s depleted air defences, amid a round-the-clock Russian onslaught in recent weeks featuring ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones.

“Supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for our combat aircraft, and investments in interceptors – all of this is directly helping save lives every day. Important talks with our partners will take place today and tomorrow,” Zelenskyy said.

Kramatorsk and neighbouring Sloviansk form part of a “fortress belt”. They are the last two big cities in northern Donetsk under full Ukrainian military control. Russia has been trying to capture them for more than a decade, after a brief period in which Russian forces occupied Sloviansk in 2014.

The cities are home to thousands of civilians, as well as Ukrainian soldiers. In recent months, roads have been festooned with nets to protect traffic from marauding enemy drones. These defences offer little protection, however, against aerial bombs.

“These are not ‘the consequences of war’, nor dry statistics. These are people killed by the Russian army,” the Donetsk regional governor, Vadym Filashkin, said ‌on Telegram after Wednesday’s strike. “Russia comes to Ukrainian land with death.”

He added: “The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians. For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target precisely because a single strike can kill as many people as possible.

“Russia deliberately flouts every conceivable rule of warfare and the norms of international humanitarian law. It selects targets where it can inflict the greatest suffering on civilians.”

There was criticism of the White House’s policy of engaging with Vladimir Putin, whom Donald Trump has invited to December’s G20 summit in Miami, Florida. The Kremlin has yet to say if Russia’s leader will take part.

The former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul said on social media that Russia was guilty of terrorism. “There is no other word for it. Putin is running a terrorist state. That officials from my country call this terrorist a nice guy is deeply embarrassing for me.”

Putin has demanded Ukraine cede the rest ​of ​the eastern Donbas region still under its ​control. Kyiv refuses to hand over its territory, believing Russia will take any concessions and carry on fighting.