Published on •Updated
A Russian attack on a bus outside the city of Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has killed at least 15 miners and injured seven others on Sunday, Ukraine’s biggest private energy firm, DTEK, reported.
Russia launched a mass attack, targeting DTEK mines, the company said. One of the strikes hit a service bus in the town of Ternivka, which was transporting miners home after their shift.
“The service bus was carrying mine workers — civilians who were not involved in the combat. This is yet another brutal attack with casualties, just for today,” Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.
Earlier in the day, a Russian attack caused damage to a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, injuring at least nine people, including a child, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.
According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES), the two strikes sparked a fire that started on the second floor of the hospital in the reception area of the gynaecology department.
Two women and a four-year-old boy were examined, and all fires were later extinguished, Governor Ivan Fedorov said.
“The strike on the maternity hospital is yet another proof of a war waged against life,” Fedorov said.
The attack came amid ongoing efforts to negotiate a peace deal and hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Feb 4-5 dates for trilateral talks.
Writing in a tweet on Sunday, Zelenskyy said that the peace talks were scheduled for February 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi.
Sunday’s attacks also come on the day that a unilateral reduction in Russian strikes on Ukraine announced by US President Donald Trump was due to end.
Trump had announced last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Ukrainian cities for a week after Moscow’s attack caused blackouts across Ukraine.
Moscow later clarified that this would only apply to Kyiv and would end on 1 February, right before the next cold wave.
Currently in its fourth year, Russia’s war in Ukraine remains the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Additional sources • EBU