Strike on Ukraine public bus leaves 33 dead

A Russian missile strike on a public bus in the eastern city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 33 people, officials said on Thursday, in one of the worst attacks by Moscow on Ukrainian civilians this year. 
The attack also wounded at least 18 people. The strikes follow deadly missile strikes a day earlier in the northern Ukrainian town of Pryluky, where the death toll rose to 22, including five children. Rescuers searched through the rubble of a residential building hit by a Russian missile and at least 54 people were injured.
The intensive pre-winter wave of attacks continued and power outages worsened in the capital Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia will likely escalate daily missile and drone attacks as winter approaches. He appealed for additional defense support from NATO countries.
Ukraine’s energy company DTEK said the national grid operator Ukrenergo had ordered emergency power outages in Kyiv. It explained that this is separate from regular, rolling outages scheduled across the country and would not be applied during those shutdowns.
A public awareness campaign, restarted this month, urged families to prepare emergency kits, store drinking water and maintain off-grid power sources ahead of expected prolonged winter blackouts, as Moscow keeps up the intensity of its attacks.
Images posted by police showed bodies strewn across a street littered with debris, as well as a charred shell of what appeared to be a bus.
"For them (the Russians), a bus with passengers is an attractive target precisely because one strike can kill as many people as possible," regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram app.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attack. Russia denies targeting civilians, though it has regularly pounded Ukrainian cities, towns and other targets during its full-scale invasion that began in February 2022.
Moscow's forces have stepped up drone and guided-bomb strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Ukraine's "fortress belt", local officials say, the backbone of its defences in the Donetsk region.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede the rest of the region still under its control before it stops fighting, which Kyiv refuses to do. The pace of Moscow's battlefield gains in the region has significantly slowed this year.
Filashkin said he had ordered city authorities in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, another key fortress-belt city, to halt public transport, saying "we have no right to risk" citizens' lives. Thursday's attack came a day after dozens were killed in a massive Russian air attack across Ukraine, primarily targeting the country's power grid.
Separately on Thursday, three people were killed and 14 wounded in morning drone strikes on the capital Kyiv, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Russian forces have unleashed frequent waves of attacks on Kyiv amid a shortage of Ukrainian air defences.