A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in north-eastern Ukraine has killed five people, prosecutors said. The attack, which occurred on Tuesday near a village in the Kharkiv region, was denounced as terrorism by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies were found at the scene. The train was operating from Chop, near Ukraine's western borders with Hungary and Slovakia, to the town of Barvinkove. Photographs posted online showed at least two carriages ablaze next to a snow-covered rail bed.
In a statement on Telegram, Zelenskyy said the train was carrying more than 200 passengers, including 18 in the carriage that was hit. 'In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be considered in exactly the same way – purely as terrorism. There is not and cannot be any military purpose in this,' he wrote.
Zelenskyy added that the latest bombardment undermined peace efforts and urged allies to increase pressure on Moscow to end the war. 'Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,' he said.
Prosecutors reported that one drone struck the train and two more hit an area alongside it. The deputy prime minister, Oleksiy Kuleba, described the attack as a 'direct act of Russian terror'. Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, chief of Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine's national railway, thanked rescue teams and fellow passengers who helped evacuate people, pledging that trains would keep running despite increased difficulty.
Separately, a barrage of more than 50 Russian drones killed three people and wounded more than 30 in the southern city of Odesa, regional officials said. The Black Sea city, key for Ukrainian exports, has been routinely targeted since the invasion began nearly four years ago. Regional governor Oleh Kiper said a woman who was 39 weeks pregnant and two girls were among the wounded.
