A Russian glide-bomb attack on two civilian buses in the eastern Ukrainian frontline city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 30 people, according to the authorities. A further 18 people were injured, the governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, said on Thursday. Earlier reports had spoken of a dozen dead and 14 injured. The figures cannot be immediately verified from an independent source.
The attack set both buses, which were carrying passengers at the time, on fire, the BBC reported, citing rescue workers. Photos from the local prosecutor’s office showed the burnt-out metal wreck of a bus, debris and victims on the street. Filashkin published images of the burning vehicle on his Telegram channel. “These are people killed by the Russian army,” he wrote. “There is no justification for this, and there can be none.”
The governor accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians. “For them, a bus with passengers is an attractive target, precisely because a single strike can kill as many people as possible,” he said. Russia was deliberately disregarding all rules of warfare and international humanitarian law. Moscow has so far not commented on the attack.
Evacuation appeals and suspended local transport
Filashkin called on the people still remaining in the Donetsk region to flee to safer regions of Ukraine. In view of the “drastic deterioration of the security situation”, he instructed the military administrations of Kramatorsk and the neighbouring city of Sloviansk to suspend public transport. “We have no right to risk the lives of passengers and drivers,” he said. According to the authorities, despite such appeals many residents repeatedly refuse to leave their belongings behind.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims and called on partner countries for “concrete actions” – new defence packages to protect Ukraine. Earlier this week he had already warned of intelligence information about an imminent major Russian attack.
A city hit almost daily
Kramatorsk was long a logistics and supply centre of the Ukrainian army. Before the start of Russia’s war of aggression, around 150,000 people lived there. Today the city, which alongside Sloviansk is the last major city in the Donetsk region controlled by Ukraine, comes under fire almost daily, according to the BBC, as Russian troops approach from the east. Glide bombs are used particularly often – winged explosive devices that do not simply fall but glide to their target. At the end of August, up to nine such bombs were fired at Kramatorsk in a single day. The city council called the latest strike an “appalling crime by the Russian army against the civilian population”. “Once again the Russians have hit a place where there are absolutely no military targets.”
The attack comes during a phase of sharply increasing Russian attacks. According to the United Nations, more civilians were killed in Ukraine by August of this year than in the whole of 2025. Earlier, a five-storey residential building was destroyed in Pryluky east of Kyiv; according to the regional governor, Vyacheslav Chaus, 22 people died there, including five children, three of them only one year old. In total, the Ukrainian authorities reported at least 32 dead and around 100 injured in the Russian air strikes. Zelenskyy called it one of the “most despicable attacks” and pointed out that it coincided with the birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The capital Kyiv is also under constant fire. According to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, three people were killed and 14 others injured on Thursday, two of them in life-threatening condition. The attacks force schoolchildren into shelters, cause shops to close and paralyse public transport. Because Russian attacks deliberately target the energy infrastructure, power outages are already occurring; on Thursday the local water utility warned that pressure in the right-bank part of the city was falling because of the power outages.
For the people in Ukraine, protection against ballistic missiles remains limited: interceptor missiles are scarce worldwide. Attack warnings are currently one of the few means of defence. In Germany, many Ukrainians with relatives in the Donetsk region are following the situation with concern; new movements of refugees could increase pressure on accommodation and integration services. Whether the promised Western defence packages will noticeably strengthen air defence is open – the decisions on this will be taken in the coming weeks.
