No fewer than thirty-three people have been killed in a Russian glide bomb attack on two civilian buses in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, rescue officials say.
Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said another 18 people were wounded, and he accused Russia of deliberately targeting a bus full of passengers in order to kill as many civilians as possible.
Images shared by local prosecutors showed the bus’s charred metal shell, along with debris and some of the victims lying on the road.
Kramatorsk and nearby Slovyansk form part of a so-called fortress belt that Russia is attempting to capture as part of Vladimir Putin’s claim to the whole Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas.
Thursday’s attack, however, comes after a dramatic rise in Russian strikes across the country and a sharp increase in civilian casualties.
The UN says that by August of this year, more civilians had been killed in Ukraine than in the whole of 2025.
In a single attack early on Wednesday that destroyed a five-story apartment block in Pryluky, east of Kyiv, 22 people were killed, among them five children. Three of those children were just one year old.
Moscow has not yet commented on the latest attack, but rescue officials said it started a fire on two buses, both of which were carrying passengers.
Filashkin urged anyone still in the Donetsk region to relocate to safer parts of Ukraine.
He said that, given the rapid worsening of security in the two neighboring cities, all public transport had been ordered to halt. He said the safety of civilians came first and that “we have no right to risk the lives of passengers and drivers.”
Moscow has frequently cited the “liberation” and “protection” of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas as its justification for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Donbas comprises two regions, Luhansk and Donetsk, and with most of Luhansk in Russian hands, the Kremlin is also seeking to seize the remaining 20% of Donetsk territory that Ukraine still controls.
Russia is also carrying out relentless air raids on the capital, Kyiv, with sirens sounding all day long.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Thursday’s attacks had killed three people and left 14 others injured. Two of the eight injured are in critical condition.
The attacks are driving schoolchildren out of classrooms and into shelters, forcing businesses to close, and disrupting public transport.
Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, especially the energy grid, are already causing power outages and are even affecting the water supply. Water authorities in the capital warned on Thursday that pressure was falling across the city’s right bank because of the power cuts.
