KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Thirty people were killed and at least 18 were wounded after a powerful Russian guided bomb exploded next to public buses filled with passengers in eastern Ukraine, authorities said Thursday, as an intensive pre-winter wave of attacks continued across the country and power outages worsened in the capital, Kyiv.
The morning attack occurred next to a bus stop in the war-torn city of Krematorsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, prompting public transport to be suspended in the area.
“There is no doubt that Russia is cynically targeting civilians,” Oleksandr Honcharenko, head of the city's military administration, said, adding that the rescue effort had been hampered by subsequent Russian attacks using small drones.
The incident follows deadly missile strikes a day earlier in the northern Ukrainian town of Pryluky, where the death toll rose to 22, including five children. Rescuers were still searching through the rubble of a residential building hit by a Russian missile. At least 54 people were wounded.
Heavy debris was removed from the cratered section of the building, while rescue dogs continued a search nearby for residents who have not yet been accounted for.
Several survivors of the attack were forced to sleep in heavily damaged apartments because they couldn't find anywhere else to sleep.
Ukraine appeals for more defense support from NATO
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.
“It is important that support in words takes concrete form in new packages for Ukraine’s defense,” he wrote in an online post. “Supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for our combat aircraft and investments in interceptors — all of this is directly helping save lives every day.”
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.
Kyiv police said bomb disposal specialists had defused two more unexploded ballistic missile warheads, each weighing about half a ton, after they landed near residential buildings. Late Wednesday, Russian drones struck Kyiv’s Obolonskyi and Desnianskyi districts, killing four people and injuring 12, including four children, police said.
Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line, more than 4 1/2 years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian attacks damage data center and oil refinery
Russian technology giant Yandex said one of its data centers in the western Ryazan region was damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack, taking the site offline and leading to potential online service disruption.
Also Thursday, Ukraine said its forces struck a large oil refinery complex in the city of Salavat, some 1,200 kilometers (about 750 miles) east of Moscow. Ukraine's General Staff described the complex as one of Russia’s largest oil refining and petrochemical facilities. The claim could not be independently verified.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his government had presented proposals to both Russia and Ukraine aimed at protecting civilian shipping in the Black Sea, while warning that commercial trade and grain exports could be disrupted by escalating military offensives.
Separately, Lithuania deployed about 100 additional soldiers to help secure its border with Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordering the NATO member, the Baltic country's defense minister, Robertas Kaunas, said.
Sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, Kaliningrad is separated from mainland Russia and remains a major security concern for NATO’s eastern flank. Kaunas said both the duration of the deployment and the number of troops could be adjusted depending on changing security conditions.
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Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania; and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
