More than a dozen people were killed Sunday after a Russian drone struck a bus carrying workers in central Ukraine, officials said. Emergency services later updated the death toll from 12 to 15 in a message posted on Telegram.
The attack came at a time when the United States is trying to broker peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Sunday that the next round of talks is scheduled for February 4-5 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The Ukrainian National Police shared images from the scene of the attack near the town of Ternivka in the Pavlohrady District of the Dnipropetrovsk Region. National police said on Telegram that the strike “hit civilian infrastructure and burned a bus with people inside,” Bloomberg reported.
Ukraine’s largest private energy firm DTEK said the bus was taking miners home after their shift. The company added that the attack was part of a wider Russian attack targeting DTEK mining facilities in the area.
(Livemint.com could not independently verify the authenticity of the claims)
Zelensky reacts
While expressing his condolences to the families of those killed, Zelenskiy turned to X and emphasized that the emergency line 112 is active and registers all requests, and a government contact center is also available. He stressed that the city needs to coordinate more effectively with government agencies to ensure that people receive timely assistance and accurate information.
Zelenskyy added that any attack of this kind should be met with a military and diplomatic response.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal on Sunday called the Dnipro strike a “cynical and targeted attack on energy sector workers” and said it happened near the Ternivska mine east of the city, Reuters reported.
On Saturday afternoon, Russia’s top envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, said he held a “constructive meeting with the U.S. peace delegation” in Florida, an AP report noted.
So far, officials have released few details about the Abu Dhabi talks, part of a year-long effort by the Trump administration to steer the two sides toward a peace deal and end nearly four years of war.
While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle to Washington’s calls for compromise, Moscow and Kiev remain sharply divided over what such a deal should entail. A key point of contention is whether Russia should retain or withdraw the areas of Ukraine it currently occupies, particularly the eastern industrial region known as Donbas, and whether it should be allowed to claim territory it has not yet occupied.
Kremlin forces have scaled back their frequent attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the past week, focusing instead on transport targets. These attacks included a strike on a passenger train on January 27 that left six dead.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region also said a Ukrainian drone struck a car and injured four people on Sunday, although this claim could not be independently verified.