Russia Strikes Ukraine's Transport Network as Toll Rises in Kramatorsk

Kyiv, Ukraine – A Russian glide bomb struck two passenger buses in the town of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Thursday morning, killing at least 30 people and wounding 18, according to regional authorities. The strike is seen as one of the deadliest single attacks on Ukrainian civilians this year.

Ukrainian officials say the attack was deliberate. Released from aircraft on the Russian side of the front line, the bomb can glide to fixed coordinates on the ground — in this case a street about 20 kilometers from the front.

"The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians," said Vadym Filashkin, head of the regional administration, in a post on Telegram. "For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target precisely because one strike can kill the maximum number of people."

Filashkin accused Russia of "disregarding every conceivable rule of war and the norms of international humanitarian law," deliberately choosing targets that cause the greatest civilian suffering.

Immediately after the attack, Filashkin ordered the suspension of all public transport in Kramatorsk and nearby Sloviansk, as Russia steps up strikes aimed at crippling Ukraine's transport infrastructure — from trains and minibuses to petrol stations, bridges, seaports and cargo vessels.

"This is a new Russian tactic," said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta research institute. "Previously they focused on depriving Ukraine of electricity, cutting power and heating; now their task also includes paralyzing infrastructure and creating a transport collapse."

According to Fesenko, the tactic is having "a certain effect" as Russia strikes railways and petrol stations in an effort to force Ukraine to accept peace on Russian terms. "They are also attacking people psychologically, breaking down the general way of life," he added.

Throughout the war, Russia has consistently denied targeting Ukrainian civilians, though the claim carries little weight for Ukrainians. According to the United Nations, 15,280 civilians were killed or wounded in the first eight months of 2026, more than 55 percent higher than the same period in 2025.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's skies have been closed to civilian aircraft, making trains, buses and trucks the lifeline for people and businesses alike, as well as for military supplies and humanitarian aid.

Trains carry nearly two-thirds of Ukraine's freight volume, including exports of steel, grain and vegetable oil — goods that keep the economy afloat. According to Ukrzaliznytsia, the state-owned railway monopoly, at least 521 locomotives have been hit by drones and shelling since 2022, with three-fifths of those strikes occurring this year alone.

Some locomotives have been hit while moving, and drones have also at times struck passenger carriages, causing fires and casualties. The largest such attack killed five passengers in January in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine — an act President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called "terrorism" with "no military justification."

A new Russian tactic

Striking moving trains and buses has become possible thanks to a new generation of Russian drones — no longer slow devices that can be jammed electronically or shot down with machine guns or rifles. They use jet engines, carry larger payloads and are controlled by operators via mesh wireless networks, in which each drone acts as a relay node.

"They are operated manually. The Russians have improved their communications systems," said Andriy Pronin, one of the pioneers of drone warfare in Ukraine. According to him, signals sometimes reach the drone via modems placed on the ground, on rooftops or even inside someone's apartment — switched on by Ukrainians recruited by Russian intelligence.

Locating the modems before an attack is "complicated but doable," Pronin said. According to Ukrainian officials and prosecutors, hundreds of recruits, including teenagers, have been offered payment via Telegram. Many did not understand the consequences and have been arrested and convicted.

Officials believe the video and positioning feeds are often supported by smuggled Ukrainian SIM cards or signals from mobile networks in neighboring Russia-allied Belarus. These drones can now reach almost anywhere in Ukrainian territory, including western regions once considered safe.

On September 14, a train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson crossed the border into Poland just 30 minutes before a Russian drone struck the locomotive of another passenger train at the Yahodyn station in western Ukraine. Former CIA Director David Petraeus was on a nearby train at the time and was reported to have described the attack as "terrifying" and "the act of a truly barbaric leader."

Ordinary Ukrainians are no less shaken. When a daytime Russian drone attack began on September 23, Alyna realized her workplace was in the most vulnerable spot at Kyiv's central station. She works in a café almost directly beneath the large overpass spanning 14 main tracks between the station buildings.

The sound of air-raid sirens and exploding kamikaze drones sent the 24-year-old running down the stairs and on to the subway station. A drone struck a nearby market, sending up columns of black smoke and burning down a modernist building known as Puck.

"Everything around me was screeching and shaking," Alyna recounted after another alert ended and passengers began returning to the station. She declined to give her surname for security reasons. Just minutes after the conversation, another siren forced passengers out of the station again, and an intercepted drone turned into a black cloud in the sky a few kilometers east of the building.

The attacks are not limited to trains — Russian drones have also targeted petrol stations, buses, minibuses and seaports, crippling Ukraine's exports of grain, vegetable oil and steel.

"You get on a minibus and you can hear a drone buzzing right next to you," said Tetiana Melikhova, a university lecturer in Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city with a pre-war population of 720,000. Her 18-year-old student, Tetiana Bubynets, along with two other civilians aged 31 and 48, were killed by an AI-controlled drone programmed to attack a petrol station on July 6.