Russian Strikes Hit Train, Homes, Kill 8 Across Eastern, Central Ukraine
At least eight people were killed on Monday in a fresh wave of Russian attacks across eastern, central and northern Ukraine, including a deadly drone strike on a civilian passenger train, Ukrainian authorities confirmed, as fighting intensifies amid renewed international pressure for a negotiated peace.
Officials said the casualties were recorded in multiple regions, underscoring the widening toll of Moscow’s continued bombardment of urban centres and critical infrastructure.
In Kramatorsk, an eastern city that remains under Ukrainian control despite steady Russian advances, three residents lost their lives, according to the head of the city’s military administration.
The city sits in the Donetsk region, one of four territories the Kremlin declared annexed in 2022, a claim rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies.
Elsewhere in the Donetsk region, two people were reported dead and 13 others injured in the town of Druzhkivka, regional authorities said. The area has faced repeated shelling as Russian forces push deeper into eastern Ukraine.
In central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, emergency workers recovered the body of a 55-year-old man from the ruins of a destroyed house. Later on Monday, a drone struck a moving passenger train in the same region, killing a 75-year-old man and injuring nine others.
“The locomotive crew immediately stopped the train. The passengers were evacuated and given first aid,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.
The incident adds to growing concerns over the safety of Ukraine’s rail network, which has served as a vital lifeline for civilian movement and logistics since the war began.
Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi told AFP last month that an uptick in Russian strikes on train infrastructure marked “an attempt to effectively cut certain regions of Ukraine”.
In the northern Chernihiv region, which borders Russia, officials also confirmed the death of a woman born in 1937 during another strike.
The latest attacks come as the United States continues diplomatic efforts aimed at securing a peace arrangement between Kyiv and Moscow, negotiations that have so far yielded no breakthrough.
Despite international calls for de-escalation, Russia has maintained sustained aerial assaults targeting energy facilities and populated areas.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II.
The war has since claimed hundreds of thousands of military and civilian lives, displaced millions, and redrawn security calculations across the continent.
