Two buses hit in Kramatorsk, Zelensky: 78 dead in recent days

On October 8, Russian glide bombs hit a road in Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk oblast, along which two civilian buses were travelling. According to rescuers, the attack killed at least 33 people; another 18 were injured, announced the head of the oblast Vadym Filashkin, as reported by Adnkronos and Sky TG24.

The previous day, a Russian attack on a residential building in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region, had already caused at least 28 deaths, including five children. The two massacres are reported by Ukrainian authorities as separate events, one day apart, and the tolls released remain for now separate by oblast.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack on Kramatorsk as something that “will not go unpunished” (transl. from Ukrainian). The same day the president reported an overall toll of 78 dead and 215 injured in recent days, citing the attacks on Pryluky, Kramatorsk, Kyiv and other cities, according to Radio Svoboda.

“It will not go unpunished” — Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine (transl. from Ukrainian)

Also on October 8, the Kyiv metro temporarily suspended train circulation and the operation of escalators due to a voltage drop from the capital’s external power supply centres. According to local sources cited by Україна молода, the power outage also halted part of the city’s public transport, on a day when the Ukrainian energy grid was already under pressure from the bombings of the previous hours.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described the capital’s situation as one of “survival” (transl. from Ukrainian), advising those who can to consider temporarily relocating out of the city, in an interview gathered by the AFP agency and picked up by the local press. His words come as the municipal administration simultaneously handles public transport disruptions and the assessment of damage to electrical infrastructure.

The toll released by Zelensky brings together in a single national count the attacks of recent days, while the local authorities of Donetsk and Chernihiv continue to record separately the victims of Kramatorsk and Pryluky: two counts that, at the moment, have not been reconciled into a single official figure, and which remain the available information base pending further updates from the Ukrainian authorities.