Russian Glide Bomb Attack on Buses in Kramatorsk Kills at Least 30 as Civilian Toll Mounts Across Ukraine

At least 30 people were killed when Russian glide bombs struck two civilian buses in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, local rescue officials reported, in one of the deadliest single incidents to hit the front-line region in recent months. Authorities said a further three people died in the village of Bilenke, which falls within the Kramatorsk community, bringing the combined death toll higher still.

According to Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional administration, another 18 people were wounded in the attack. He accused Russian forces of deliberately targeting buses filled with passengers in an effort to inflict the maximum possible number of civilian casualties. The strike underscored what Ukrainian officials describe as a sustained campaign against populated areas near the shifting front line.

Images circulated by the local prosecutor's office showed the charred metal skeleton of one bus, with flames still visible inside the wreckage and black smoke billowing upward. Debris and the bodies of victims were scattered across the roadway surrounding the vehicle, offering a stark visual record of the assault.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded forcefully to the attack, writing on Telegram that "this strike will not go without our response." He said Russia was attempting to extinguish all life in the Donbas region and called on the international community to react with severity, arguing that Moscow deserved harsh consequences for the deaths it has caused.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the Kramatorsk strike. The attack came amid what officials and monitors describe as a dramatic escalation in Russian assaults across Ukraine, accompanied by a sharp rise in civilian fatalities. Data compiled by the United Nations indicates that more Ukrainians were killed by August of this year than during the entirety of 2025.

The surge in violence was illustrated days earlier when a Russian attack destroyed a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, east of Kyiv. That strike killed 22 people, among them five children — three of whom were only one year old. The deaths of such young victims prompted renewed outrage among Ukraine's allies.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who visited the Pryluky site alongside Zelensky, said the attack demonstrated what he characterised as Vladimir Putin's "evil intent and evil strategy." He announced a fresh round of measures, including "more sanctions on Russia, on the war machine of Putin, on the shadow fleet, on the oil companies, on the crypto, on the financing of the war." Miliband also assured Zelensky that Britain would stand with Ukraine "as long as it takes for you to prevail in this conflict."

Kramatorsk and the neighbouring city of Slovyansk form part of a so-called fortress belt that Moscow is attempting to capture as part of Putin's declared claim to the whole of Ukraine's industrial Donbas region. Donbas comprises two oblasts — Luhansk and Donetsk — and with most of Luhansk already under Russian control, the Kremlin is pressing to take the remaining roughly 20 percent of Donetsk territory still held by Ukrainian forces.

For much of the war, Kramatorsk served as a logistics and supply hub for the Ukrainian military. In recent months, however, it has come under near-daily Russian attack as Moscow's forces advance closer to the city's eastern outskirts. Glide bombs, which are fitted with winglets allowing them to glide toward targets rather than simply fall, have been used repeatedly against both Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. In late August, as many as nine glide bombs were fired at Kramatorsk in a single day.

The Kramatorsk city council condemned the strike as a "horrific crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population," stating that Russian forces had once again hit a location where there were "absolutely no military targets." The allegation echoed a pattern Ukrainian authorities have cited throughout the conflict, accusing Moscow of indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Following the attack, Filashkin urged anyone still remaining in the eastern front-line region to relocate to safer parts of the country. He said that given the rapid deterioration of security in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, all public transport had been ordered to halt operations. The safety of civilians was paramount, he added, and authorities had "no right to risk the lives of passengers and drivers."

Russia has consistently justified its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, by citing the supposed "liberation" and "protection" of the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas. Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected that rationale as baseless, pointing to the widespread destruction and civilian suffering inflicted on the very region Moscow claims to be defending.

Beyond the front line, Russia has in recent weeks carried out relentless air raids on Kyiv, with air-raid sirens sounding almost continuously. On Thursday, Kyiv police reported that four people were killed and two injured in the latest strike on the capital, adding to the mounting toll in a city that had until recently been spared the worst of the daily bombardment.

The attacks are reshaping daily life across Ukraine. Schoolchildren are being forced out of classrooms and into underground shelters, businesses are closing, and public transport is being disrupted. Moscow's strikes on critical infrastructure — particularly the energy grid — are already causing power outages and even affecting water supplies. Local water authorities in Kyiv warned on Thursday that pressure was dropping across the city's right bank because of electricity cuts.

The capital's metro network, on which millions of residents depend, briefly suspended all train traffic on Thursday after a voltage drop originating from "external power centres." Services later resumed, but at longer intervals, according to local officials. The disruption illustrated how deeply the strikes are penetrating the routines of ordinary Ukrainians far from the front line.

Zelensky extended his condolences to the families and loved ones of those affected by the latest attacks and reiterated that Ukraine's partners must deliver "concrete action through new defence packages for the protection of Ukraine." His appeal reflected a persistent frustration in Kyiv that allied support, while substantial, has not kept pace with the scale of the threat.

The strike on the buses in Kramatorsk thus stands as the latest episode in a widening pattern of deadly attacks. With rescue operations continuing and the security situation in the region deteriorating, officials warned that the toll could rise further and repeated their calls for civilians to evacuate while they still can.