A Russian drone attack against a bus carrying miners left at least 12 dead this Sunday in central Ukraine, according to the country’s authorities. The attack occurred a few hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a new round of peace talks, in a context of uncertainty about the temporary suspension of Russian attacks against energy infrastructure.
Deputy Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal described the attack, which occurred in the town of Pavlograd, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as a “cynical and deliberate” act against workers in the energy sector.
The impact has occurred in the midst of a “massive Russian attack” against the mines in the area of the energy company DTEK, which has reported on its Telegram account what happened and initially spoke of 15 victims, a figure that has subsequently been corrected: “The epicenter of one of the attacks was a work bus that was transporting miners from the company after a shift in the Dnipropetrovsk region. So far, 15 miners are known to have died. According to preliminary information, seven miners were also killed. injured.”
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, condemned this Sunday the “crime” of the Russian attack on a bus, an action that demonstrates, he said, that Russia is responsible for an “escalation.”
Zelensky recalled in his usual afternoon speech that the attack was carried out “against an ordinary bus transporting miners.” “Sadly, many people have died,” he added.
The military leader of the region, Oleksandr Ganzha, has reported on his Telegram account that local authorities have begun an investigation to gather more information about what happened. Ganzha has announced the activation of a regional alert due to the possibility of new attacks.
Ukraine faces pressure from the United States to move toward a peace deal in a war approaching its fourth year, while its energy system suffers from an intense Russian bombing campaign in one of the coldest winters in recent years.
The first round of US-backed trilateral talks failed to make progress on the territorial issue. Moscow continues to demand that Ukraine give up more territory in the east, something kyiv rejects. Zelensky announced this Sunday that the next round will take place on February 4 and 5 and stated that Ukraine is prepared for “substantive” negotiations, despite Russian advances on the front.
Although there have been no major attacks on energy facilities in recent days, Zelensky said Russia is hitting railway and logistics infrastructure, as well as the power grid in two cities across the Dnieper.
In the southeast of the country, two people were killed in a drone attack in Dnipro, and nine were injured in shelling of a maternity hospital and a residential neighborhood in Zaporizhzhia. A neighbor, quoted by Reuters, harshly criticized Russia, denouncing the contradiction between the supposed pause in energy attacks and the damage to civilians.
In kyiv, more than 500 buildings remained without heat this Sunday after a massive breakdown in the electricity grid that left thousands of homes without power and even affected Moldova. Authorities warned that temperatures would drop below minus 20 degrees and that there would be planned outages across the country. Ukraine is importing record levels of electricity to stabilize the system.
Zelensky has mentioned power outages in Nikopol and Marhanets caused by drone attacks against the electrical grid, as well as attacks on logistics facilities and railways in Dnipro, Konotop and Sumi. He has also referred to power cuts in Kirovohrad, Vinnitsia, Yitomir, Poltava and Nikolaev and bombings in Chernigov, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. “Every attack must be responded to militarily and diplomatically,” he said.
