Thirty people have been killed after Russia struck two passenger buses in Kramatorsk, near the frontline in eastern Ukraine, according to local authorities.
“As of now, the death toll from this morning’s attack on buses has risen to 30. Eighteen people were wounded,” the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said. The governor’s office gave the same toll and said 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.
“These are not ‘the consequences of war’, nor dry statistics. These are people killed by the Russian army,” regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram app. “Russia comes to Ukrainian land with death.”
Moscow’s forces have stepped up drone and guided-bomb strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Ukraine’s so-called “fortress belt“, local officials say, the backbone of its defences in the Donetsk region.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede the rest of the region still under its control before it stops fighting, which Kyiv refuses to do.
Thursday’s attack came a day after dozens were killed in a Russian air strikes across Ukraine, primarily targeting the country’s power grid.
More details soon …
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