Russian strike on buses kills 30 in frontline Ukrainian city / Photo: © Donetsk Region Prosecutor's Office/AFP
Russian strike on buses kills 30 in frontline Ukrainian city
Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians after 30 people were killed when two buses were blown up in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, in one of the deadliest single attacks for weeks.
Photos posted by local authorities showed the burnt-out metal shell of the vehicles, with the blurred-out images of bodies and debris strewn across the road.
Police said the buses were hit with a glide bomb.
The strikes come just a day after five children were among 22 killed when a Russian missile struck a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, in the northern Chernigiv region.
"The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians," Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said, accusing Moscow of flouting "every conceivable rule of warfare and norm of international humanitarian law".
Kramatorsk City Council called it "yet another horrific crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population".
"Once again, the Russians have struck a location where there are absolutely no military targets," it added.
There has been mounting concern about the increase in civilian casualties in the conflict, as both sides step up long-range attacks beyond their borders.
Since Russia first invaded in 2022, Ukraine has accused its forces of deliberately attacking and killing civilians.
The United Nations has verified more than 17,000 civilian deaths throughout the war, but says the real number is considerably higher.
Last week, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had sanctioned massive attacks on civilian areas.
The Kremlin has denied the claim.
- Security worsened -
Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, has come under increasing attack, including on Wednesday when Russia launched a barrage of powerful ballistic and cruise missiles, and fast-moving, jet-powered drones.
The city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said two people were found dead on Thursday after a fire at a four-storey building that was hit by a drone in the densely populated Solomyansky district.
Klitschko has said the attacks, which have hit key transport bridges in the city, as well as the rail network and energy grid, were "tearing Kyiv apart".
For the first few years of the war, Kyiv had been relatively spared from the devastation wrought on the frontline but should now be on a war footing, he argued.
Kramatorsk, which was home to some 150,000 people before the war, is one of the key cities that Russia has not yet captured in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow claims as its own.
It has been a logistics and supply hub for the Ukrainian military for much of the war and is part of the so-called "fortress belt" which troops are fighting to keep hold of.
Russian forces have edged close to the city's eastern fringes, which has prompted calls for the civilians who remain to relocate to safer regions of Ukraine.
Filashkin said Thursday's strike, which happened at 10:00 am (0700 GMT), represented a "sharp deterioration" in security and ordered the suspension of public transport in Kramatorsk and neighbouring Sloviansk.
"Under these circumstances, we cannot risk the lives of passengers and drivers," he said. "The safety of the residents of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk is now our top priority."
Ukraine last month launched a counter-offensive against Russian troops around Lyman -- to the north of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk -- claiming some success in regaining pockets of territory.
P.Jones--TNT
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