At least 30 people have been injured following a Russian drone strike on a railway station in north-east Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky has said.
In a post on X, he said that preliminary reports indicated train staff and passengers were at the site of the strike in the city of Shostka, in the Sumy region.
Emergency services are on the scene and have begun helping people, he said, adding that information regarding the injured was still being established.
He also posted a video showing a damaged train carriage on fire.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians. This is terrorism, which the world has no right to ignore,” Zelensky wrote on X.
“Every day Russia takes people’s lives. And only strength can make them stop.”
According to the regional governor Oleh Hryhorov and the Ukrainian Railways body, there were two strikes which hit two passenger trains.
Three children, aged 8, 11 and 14, were among the injured, Hryhorov said.
The second strike hit at a time when evacuations from the area were already under way, a statement from the railways body said.
It represented a “vile” attack “aimed at stopping communication with our frontline communities”, the statement continued. Shostka lies in north-eastern Ukraine, some 50km from the Russian border.
Ukrainian Railways head Oleksandr Pertsovsky told reporters, including AFP, that there was “no military purpose” to the attack which instead was designed to “sow panic among people”.
He also said there had been an intensification of Russian attacks on railway infrastructure.
Zelensky in his post also called for “action” from the West, saying: “We’ve heard resolute statements from Europe and America – and it’s high time to turn them all into reality.”
Russia has intensified its aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent weeks, regularly launching hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.
Ukraine has long been urging its Western allies to provide it with enough advanced air defence weaponry to be able to cope with almost daily Russian strikes.
Last Sunday, a massive 12-hour strike involving hundreds of drones and nearly 50 missiles left four people dead in Kyiv and at least 70 injured.
Ukraine’s deputy minister Ivan Havryliuk has also argued that strengthening the country’s air defence systems represented an investment in the wider security of Europe, referring to recent drone activity in European air space.
US President Donald Trump and Europe have been leading efforts to end the war – but Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly rejected calls for a ceasefire.
Kyiv and its allies accuse the Russian president of stalling tactics as his troops continue making slow progress on the battlefield – despite the reporting of very high combat casualties.
The US president has appeared increasingly frustrated with the lack of eagerness from the Kremlin to begin peace talks.
And, although he has desisted from imposing further sanctions on Russia, Trump has shifted his position on the war, saying he thought Ukraine could take back the land it had lost to Moscow.
Earlier this year the Trump administration approved a new mechanism which sees European allies purchase US-made weapons for Ukraine.
The US is also considering a request by Ukraine for long-range missiles that could hit major Russian cities far from the front line.
