KYIV/MOSCOW: A Russian bomb attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk killed at least 33 people, authorities said on Thursday, describing it as a targeted strike on civilians in the key stronghold sought by Moscow.

Another 18 people were wounded in one of the largest single attacks this year, which took place on a street where police said two city buses were operating at the time of the strike. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described it as a bus stop. 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.

Kyiv hits largest oil refinery in Siberia, data centre in Ryazan region

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.

Siberia refinery attack

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday it had struck Russia’s largest oil refinery, some 2,500 km from Ukraine, deep in Siberia. The refinery, which is in Omsk and is operated by Gazpromneft, was last attacked in July.

In the summer, the facility had to halt operations after the strike. The Omsk region governor Vitaly Khotsenko said that an industrial zone was hit by a drone, without providing details.

Ukraine, under heavy missile and drone attack from Russia, is waging its own campaign of long-distance drone strikes against military, energy and commercial targets in a bid to raise the cost to Moscow of continuing the war.

Data centre hit

A drone attack caused a fire at a data centre belonging to Russian technology giant Yandex, the company said on Thursday, in the first strike of its kind on Russia. Images posted on social media showed thick, black smoke pouring from the roof of the building, which the company said was in the central Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. It is more than 500 kilometres from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

The former head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinforma­tion said Kyiv was responsible for the night-time hit on the Yandex centre, writing on Telegram: “Two can play at this game”.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2026