Russian drone on Ukraine bus kills five as rail network faces fresh strikes

Kyiv,UPDATED: Sep 16, 2026 16:08 IST

Russian strikes hit civilian transport and other sites in Ukraine early Wednesday, with a drone attack on a passenger bus in the south killing five people and injuring at least seven. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the bus strike an "atrocity", describing it as the latest in a series of attacks on civilian transportation.

Zelenskyy also said Russian strikes hit railway infrastructure in other parts of the country, as Ukraine renewed appeals for help to replace damaged locomotives. The developments came as Zelenskyy rejected an earlier claim by US President Donald Trump that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop attacking each other's energy infrastructure, while officials on both sides reported fresh overnight attacks.

The bus strike took place in the Nikopol district of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, near the southern front line. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said all five victims died at the scene, while the seven injured were receiving medical care.

In a post on X, Zelenskyy said the vehicle was a minibus and that the strike had "no military rationale". He said the incident was linked to Russia's targeting of logistics and critical infrastructure, which has continued "unabated". Zelenskyy also said a passenger train was hit in the Mykolaiv region on Wednesday, damaging a railway station and a diesel locomotive. Nearly 170 passengers on board were evacuated before the strike. He added that an electric locomotive in the northwestern city of Kovel was also struck.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X on Tuesday that Russian strikes on the country's rail network have damaged or completely destroyed more than 500 locomotives since the war began in February 2022, with more than half of those strikes happening this year. He described the attacks as "systematic" and aimed at disrupting logistics across Ukraine. Sybiha said Ukraine urgently needed replacements for damaged locomotives and called on its partners to help find locomotives compatible with the country's 1,520-millimetre rail gauge and to help with financing. In another post on Wednesday, he said Russian forces were striking passenger trains, locomotives, stations and railway routes "knowing exactly how essential they are for civilians, evacuations, and Ukraine's economy". "This is not collateral damage. It is a systematic hunt for people and an attempt to paralyse civilian life," he wrote.

In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said there was no agreement in place to halt attacks on energy sites, pushing back against Trump's social media post on Monday that such a truce had been reached. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to enter such an agreement if Russia stopped striking Ukrainian energy facilities. He said the possibility had been discussed during a recent meeting in Kyiv with Trump's representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but that he had told them: "If the Russians are ready for an energy truce, that means there will be no attacks on energy facilities at all." Previous attempts to secure even a partial ceasefire have repeatedly broken down within hours, with both sides accusing each other of violations.

Elsewhere, 17 sites were damaged in Ukraine's Kyiv region between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, according to regional military administration head Tymur Tkachenko. He said the damaged sites included eight private homes, five vehicles, a municipal building, a hangar and a production facility. Zelenskyy said the Kherson, Donetsk and Poltava regions had also come under attack. Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. In Russia's Belgorod region, acting governor Alexander Shuvayev said one person was killed and four others were injured in Ukrainian strikes over the previous 24 hours.

The latest round of attacks left casualties on the ground, added to damage across Ukraine's transport network and underlined that no truce on energy strikes has taken effect, with both countries continuing to report fresh attacks.

With PTI Inputs

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