A Russian attack on a bus in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk near the front line killed at least 12 people and wounded 14, local officials said.
The local prosecutor's office said preliminary data showed 12 people confirmed dead so far, with another 14 reported wounded. It said the final casualty toll from the strike was still being established, and released photographs showing bodies and debris scattered across the road in front of the burning metal frame of a bus.
Regional governor Vadym Filashkin confirmed the strike and shared images of the bus, which appeared to have been destroyed.
Kramatorsk is one of the key cities Russia has not captured in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, an area Moscow claims to have annexed. The city has served as a logistics and supply hub for Ukraine's military for much of the war, sitting inside what officials call a "fortress belt" that Ukrainian forces are fighting to hold.
Russian forces have advanced close to the city's eastern edge, prompting officials to urge remaining civilians to move to safer parts of Ukraine.
The Kramatorsk city council called it "another horrific crime committed by the Russian military against civilians," saying the Russians had again struck a location that "has no military targets whatsoever."
Elsewhere in Ukraine, the death toll from a Russian missile strike on Wednesday on a residential building in the city of Pryluky, in the northern Chernihiv region, rose to 22, including five children, regional governor Vyacheslav Chaus said in a statement on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a cruise missile scored a direct hit on the building in Pryluky, about 150km east of the capital, Kyiv.
Strike on Russian data centre
In Russia, meanwhile, a drone caused a fire at a data centre belonging to Russian technology company Yandex, the company told AFP on Thursday.
Unverified images circulating on social media showed thick black smoke rising from the roof of the building, which the company said is located in the Ryazan region of central Russia, southeast of Moscow.
Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up long-range strikes on each other in recent months, with recent Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian data centres and logistics warehouses.
A former head of Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation suggested Kyiv was responsible for the strike, writing on Telegram: "Anyone can play this game."
Yandex is Russia's largest technology company, often described as "Russia's Google," operating the country's most popular search engine along with food delivery and ride-hailing apps used by tens of millions of people across the Russian-speaking world.
