Five dead as Russian drones hit Ukrainian transport

Russian drones have struck a passenger bus and a train in southern Ukraine, killing five people, as Moscow presses on with strikes on transport links and infrastructure.

"There is no military logic to this, just another act of brutality," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media, urging the US and Europe to toughen sanctions against Russia.

Moscow and Ukraine have traded strikes in recent months on logistics and other economic targets, aimed at hampering each other's war effort and damaging morale.

With Ukraine's airspace closed since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, buses and trains have become a vital transport link for Ukrainians and businesses.

The drone attack on the passenger bus near the frontline city of Nikopol killed four men and a woman early on Wednesday, police said.

Seven people were wounded in the attack, said the governor of the surrounding Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Hanzha, who posted the photo.

There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both Ukraine and Russia deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war, triggered by Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

A Russian drone also attacked a passenger train in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, the acting regional governor said.

Zelenskiy said, in addition to the Mykolaiv train attack, a locomotive in Kovel — near the border with Poland — was also struck.

The incidents follow similar attacks recently, including on a train near Ukraine's border with NATO-member Poland on Sunday, shortly after European diplomats and political figures had used the same line.

Regional officials reported other casualties through the afternoon and evening in various areas.

Russian shelling killed one person in southern Kherson region and the head of the city administration in the port of Odesa reported one dead. Russian attacks injured more than a dozen people in Sumy in the north and Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine.

The Russia-installed head of areas of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region held by Moscow said a Ukrainian drone strike had killed one person. Officials in Russia's border Belgorod region said six people were injured in Ukrainian attacks.

Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian railways, hitting 120 passenger wagons, 304 locomotives and 43 railway stations in 2026, the state rail operator told Reuters.