A Russian drone hit a bus carrying workers in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets early on Wednesday, killing nine people and injuring close to 50, Kyiv officials said, in an attack Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was a “deliberate war crime”.
Zelenskyy said the Russian strike hit a bus transporting people who work at a mining and processing plant.
Zelenskyy said on X: “An ordinary bus. Clearly a civilian object, a civilian target. It was an egregiously brutal attack – and an absolutely deliberate war crime.” He called for “an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire”.
Russia fired a total of 134 attack drones at targets in Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Marhanets, in south-central Ukraine, lies on the Ukrainian-controlled north bank of the Dnipro river’s dried-up reservoir that separates the warring sides.
Zelenskyy shared photographs of the aftermath of the attack on X, showing bodies lying in and next to the bus and being carried away by emergency workers.
Zelenskiy added that most of those injured were women.
Elsewhere, an energy plant that provides electricity to the city of Kherson, near southern frontlines, was destroyed in an artillery and drone attack, the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said.
Ukraine’s emergency service also reported a drone strike on the Synelnykove district in the Dnipropetrovsk region that injured two people and sparked a fire at an agricultural enterprise.
Russia further fired drones into the central region of Poltava, injuring at least six people, its governor said.
“Solely the city’s civilian infrastructure was under enemy attacks,” the emergency service said on Telegram.
Several fires broke out and residential buildings, enterprises, warehouses, and garages were damaged, the emergency service said, posting photos of firefighters battling flames at night.
A drone attack on civilian infrastructure in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa injured two people and sparked several fires, the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said on Telegram.
Russian drone salvoes also set off large-scale fires in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the north-east, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said on Telegram.
Seven private houses, a storage building and an outbuilding were also damaged by drones hitting the Kyiv region, where a fire also broke out in a restaurant complex, its regional governor said.
Both Russia and Ukraine are under pressure from the United States to demonstrate progress towards ending the war, which began with Russia’s 2022 full-blown invasion, amid warnings that Donald Trump, the US president, could walk away from peacemaking.