At least 30 killed in strike on buses in Kramatorsk

At least 30 people were killed and 18 wounded when a Russian glide-bomb attack struck civilian buses in Kramatorsk, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, officials said on 8 October. The reported attack prompted authorities to halt local public transport in Kramatorsk and nearby Sloviansk.¹²³

Attack on public transport

The Donetsk regional prosecutor's office said the death toll from the morning attack had reached 30, with 18 people injured. Reporting described a Russian aerial bomb or glide bomb hitting buses carrying civilians; a second bus caught fire. Kramatorsk City Council said there were no military targets at the location that was hit.¹²

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the target as an "ordinary public transport stop". Vadym Filashkin, who leads the regional military administration, said bus services in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk were suspended amid the worsening security situation. He added: "In such circumstances, we have no right to risk the lives of passengers and drivers."²³

Other reported casualties

Elsewhere in the Kramatorsk community, shelling killed three people in Bilenke, according to reports. In Pryluky, a Russian strike on a five-storey residential block killed at least 22 people, including five children, after the building collapsed. One account said at least 54 people were injured in Pryluky.¹²³

Russian attacks also affected Kyiv. NPR reported that Russian drones killed four people and injured 12, including four children, in the Obolonskyi and Desnianskyi districts. The BBC separately reported three people killed and 14 injured in attacks on the capital, with two of eight injured people in critical condition; the differing casualty accounts were not reconciled in the available reports.¹³

Air defences and power supply

Zelenskyy urged Ukraine's western partners to turn support into additional defence packages, pointing to anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for combat aircraft and investment in interceptors. He said: "Supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for our combat aircraft, and investments in interceptors – all of this is directly helping save lives every day."²³

Kyiv also faced emergency power cuts ordered by Ukrenergo, separately from regular rolling outages, according to NPR. The BBC reported that attacks on infrastructure were causing electricity outages and affecting water supplies, with water pressure falling across the right bank of Kyiv during power cuts.¹³

Fighting around Donetsk

The Guardian characterized Kramatorsk and Sloviansk as the only two major northern Donetsk cities still entirely controlled by Ukraine's military. Roads near the cities have been covered with nets intended to shield traffic from drones, although the report said these measures offered limited protection against aerial bombs. Russia has demanded that Ukraine give up the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of the eastern Donbas, according to the same report.²

Ukraine said its military hit an extensive refinery site in Salavat, which the General Staff called among Russia's biggest refining and petrochemical installations. NPR said the claimed strike could not be independently verified. It also reported that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a Yandex data centre in Russia's Ryazan region, potentially disrupting online services.³