KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian-guided bomb exploded next to public buses filled with passengers in eastern Ukraine, authorities said Thursday, killing 30 people as part of a wave of attacks that also worsened power outages in the capital.
“There is no doubt that Russia is cynically targeting civilians,” Oleksandr Honcharenko, head of the city’s military administration, said, adding that the rescue effort had been hampered by subsequent Russian attacks using small drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Pryluky on Thursday with visiting British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who announced new sanctions on Russia.
Sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, Kaliningrad is separated from mainland Russia and remains a major security concern for NATO’s eastern flank. Late Wednesday, Russian drones struck Kyiv’s Obolonskyi and Desnianskyi districts, killing four people and injuring 12, including four children, police said. Separately, Lithuania deployed about 100 additional soldiers to help secure the NATO member’s border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the Baltic country’s defense minister, Robertas Kaunas, said.
Kyiv police said bomb disposal specialists defused two unexploded ballistic missile warheads, each weighing about half a ton, after they landed near residential buildings. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his government presented proposals to both Russia and Ukraine aimed at protecting civilian shipping in the Black Sea, while warning that commercial trade and grain exports could be disrupted by escalating military offensives.
“Supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for our combat aircraft and investments in interceptors — all of this is directly helping save lives every day. Regular, rolling outages that occur on a schedule across the country will be halted during these shutdowns.
“It is important that support in words takes concrete form in new packages for Ukraine’s defense,” he wrote in an online post. In audio clips responding to journalist’s questions Thursday evening, Zelenskyy said a Ukrainian delegation would meet in the U.S. with President Donald Trump’s representatives Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for two days beginning Friday to discuss strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, among other issues. Ukraine’s energy company DTEK said national grid operator Ukrenergo had ordered emergency power outages in Kyiv.
