At least 30 dead in Russian bus strike as Moscow closes in on Ukraine’s ‘fortress belt’
Russia has increasingly hit civilian targets, but the Thursday strike, which ripped through two buses, was reminiscent of larger strikes earlier in the war.
KYIV — At least 30 people were killed and 18 injured after a Russian glide bomb tore apart a bus stop in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Thursday, the State Emergency Service said, as Moscow ramps up the pressure on Ukraine’s “fortress belt” — the key to Vladimir Putin’s quest to claim the whole of Donbas.
Russia has gradually advanced on the region, pummeling cities like Kramatorsk with glide bombs and artillery strikes. But Ukraine has managed to cling on. Military analysts say a Russian breakthrough is unlikely before the end of 2026, and both sides are suffering massive casualties.
Russia is intensifying attacks on civilian targets and public transportation, including bridges and trains, but the strike on the bus stop, which ripped through two buses — killing several civilians — was reminiscent of Russia’s larger strikes earlier in the war.
Kramatorsk is one of the largest cities in Donbas’s “fortress belt” — a 31-mile strip of land on the front line that is built up with defensive infrastructure — that are fighting to stave off total obliteration.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces have shelled settlements in the Donetsk region of Donbas 31 times, and 256 people, including 32 children, were evacuated from the front line, Donetsk governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Oleksandr Honcharenko, head of Kramatorsk’s military administration, said Thursday on Ukrainian television that there are “now almost no safe locations left in the city.”
Footage from the attack showed bodies and limbs strewn across the road next to the smoking, twisted frame of a bus.
It was the second bus attack in Kramatorsk this month, highlighting the proximity of Russian forces, now stationed roughly three to six miles from the city’s eastern periphery.
“The Russian bomb effectively hit two city minibuses. Some of those killed have still not been identified because of the severity of their injuries,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on his social media channels, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as doctors are fighting to save several of the injured.
“This strike will not go unanswered. Russia is trying to destroy all life in Donbas, and a response from the world is a must,” he said.
While Moscow is battering frontline towns in the east and the south, Russian forces are also striking larger towns in Ukraine’s rear, hoping to make its big cities unlivable by winter.
On Wednesday, a missile strike on a residential building in Pryluky, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, killed 22 people, including five children.
The uptick in civilian deaths comes as Ukraine and Russia find themselves at an impasse, trapped in a war of attrition and unable to proceed with peace negotiations. Both sides are trying to break the deadlock by striking each other’s energy and logistics infrastructure and pressuring civilian populations.
In an interview with a Greek outlet Wednesday during his visit to Athens, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the war was in “a strategic stalemate.”
“Right now, there don’t seem to be prospects of a negotiated settlement,” he said. “We are prepared to play whatever role we can in making that happen. And we have tried in the past, but so far it’s been elusive.”
Ukrainian negotiators are due to visit the United States for talks on Friday and over the weekend, Zelensky said Thursday, urging President Donald Trump to step up pressure on Russia.
“One cannot, on the one hand, negotiate with the Russians about future economic projects, whilst on the other hand say that we find ourselves in some sort of … diplomatic stalemate,” Zelensky said while visiting the site of the missile strike in Pryluky.
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Kostiantyn Khudov contributed to this report from Kyiv.
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By Francesca Ebel
Francesca Ebel is a Ukraine correspondent for The Washington Post and a former Russia correspondent. Before joining The Post in 2022, Ebel was based in Tunisia with The Associated Press where she led the agency's North Africa coverage.follow on X@Francesca Ebel
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