A bus transporting miners in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region was struck by a Russian drone on Sunday, resulting in the deaths of at least 12 individuals.
According to later reports from Ukrainian emergency services, the number of fatalities increased to 15, making it one of the most lethal individual assaults since the conflict began.
The Sunday assault occurred just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that a new session of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia had been rescheduled.
A representative for DTEK, the company that employed the workers, informed Digital that the bus was deliberately targeted by drones while it was traveling “approximately 40 miles from the front line in central and eastern Ukraine.”
The DTEK spokesperson also characterized the event as an attack on civilian infrastructure.
“This was a deliberate terrorist strike on civilians and yet another Russian crime against critical infrastructure,” the spokesperson continued.
It was also confirmed that the bus was carrying miners home following their work shift when it was hit by the Russian drone.
Emergency teams later put out a fire ignited by the blast, and at least seven workers sustained injuries.
In a statement, the company also said, “The epicenter of one of the attacks was a company bus transporting miners from the enterprise after a shift in the Dnipropetrovsk region.”
Late Sunday, Zelenskyy denounced the strike, labeling it another intentional assault on civilians.
Earlier that day, he announced that talks involving Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S., originally anticipated for Sunday, would now be held on Feb. 4-5 in Abu Dhabi.
“Ukraine is prepared for a substantive discussion, and we are interested in an outcome that moves us closer to a genuine and honorable end to the war,” Zelenskyy stated on X, noting that all parties had agreed to the postponement.
This delay came after an unexpected meeting on Saturday in Florida between Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special envoy and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The talks in Abu Dhabi are now anticipated to include delegates from Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S., as reported.
At the same time, Zelenskyy cautioned that Russia is intensifying its offensive against civilian and logistical targets.
“Over the past week, Russia has deployed more than 980 attack drones, almost 1,100 guided aerial bombs, and two missiles against Ukraine,” he posted on X on Sunday. “We are documenting Russian efforts to sever logistics and connections between cities and communities.”
In a statement, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko also stated that the bus attack represented the company’s “single largest loss of life of DTEK employees since Russia’s full-scale invasion.”
“We can already state definitively that this was an unprovoked terrorist attack on a purely civilian target, which is utterly unjustifiable,” Timchenko said.
He further added that the assault was “one of the darkest days in our history.” “DTEK teams are collaborating with emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region to make sure the injured and the families of the deceased receive all necessary care and support. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten,” he said.