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Russia drone strike kills nine in wave of attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure Russia drone strike kills nine in wave of attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure
(about 11 hours later)
Attack on city of Marhanets comes as officials were set to meet in London for ceasefire talksAttack on city of Marhanets comes as officials were set to meet in London for ceasefire talks
A Russian drone hit a bus carrying workers in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets early on Wednesday, killing nine people in wave of attacks that targeted civilian infrastructure in east, south and central Ukraine, officials said. 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”.
The full scale of the attacks, which kept Kyiv and the eastern half of Ukraine awake for several hours overnight, was not immediately known. Zelenskyy said the Russian strike hit a bus transporting people who work at a mining and processing plant.
The strikes came as both Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy have signalled that they would be willing to negotiate a pact that would ban striking civilian infrastructure. 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”.
If bilateral talks occur, it would be the first time the two sides had held direct negotiations since the early days of the war, which Russia began with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 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.
European and US officials will meet with a Ukrainian delegation on Wednesday in London for further peace talks, after their Paris meeting last week. At the meeting, Washington is expecting Ukraine’s answer to a peace framework that requires Kyiv to accept Russian occupation, Axios reported. 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.
“The Russians attacked a bus with employees of the enterprise who were on their way to work in Marhanets,” Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council, said on Telegram. 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.
Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, which includes Marhanets, in central-southern Ukraine, said nine people were killed in the attack, with at least 30 injured. Zelenskiy added that most of those injured were women.
Ukraine’s emergency service said that there was also an attack on the Synelnykivskyi district in the Dnipropetrovsk region that injured two people and sparked a fire at an agricultural enterprise. 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.
Russia also launched “a massive” drone attack on the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, injuring at least six people, the emergency service said in a post on Telegram messaging app. 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.“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.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.
Two people were injured in a drone attack on civilian infrastructure in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa, which also sparked several fires, Oleh Kiper, governor of the southern Ukraine Odesa region, said on Telegram. 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.
Large-scale fires also broke out as a result of a Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov 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.
Air defence units were also engaged in repelling attacks on the Kyiv region, but there were no reports of potential damages. 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.
There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks. 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.
The Russian defence ministry said that its air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over several Russian regions and over the Crimean Peninsula. Regional governors said there were no reports of immediate damages.