Drone hits bus in Russian-controlled area and leaves seven dead

A drone attack hit a bus, killing at least seven people and injuring 11 others this Wednesday (3) in an area of the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine, controlled by Russia, said the head of the region, appointed by the Kremlin.

Denis Pushilin, in a post on the messaging app Telegram, stated that the passenger vehicle was traveling between Moscow and Simferopol, in Crimea, territory occupied by Russian forces.

Russia's State Investigative Committee has opened a criminal inquiry under the category of "terrorist attack", the TASS news agency reported, citing Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko.

The Russian government also warned last week that Russia would begin carrying out "systematic attacks" against targets in Kiev in retaliation for what it called a devastating Ukrainian drone attack on a student dormitory in Luhansk, a Russian-controlled city in eastern Ukraine, that killed 21 people.

Ukraine said it attacked a drone command center in the area, not students. President Vladimir Putin declared on Monday night that Kiev had "opened a new page in a series of crimes" with the attack on the dormitory and a subsequent attack on an apartment building in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine's Kherson region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared that another Russian attack may be imminent.

Both sides deny deliberately attacking civilians.

Understand the war in Ukraine
Russia began a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently holds about a fifth of the neighboring country's territory.

Still in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The Russians are slowly advancing in the east and Moscow shows no signs of abandoning its main war objectives. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, President of the United States, is pushing for a peace agreement.

Ukraine has carried out increasingly bold attacks inside Russia and says the operations are aimed at destroying essential Russian military infrastructure.

Putin's government, in turn, has intensified air strikes, including drone offensives.

Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.

It is also believed that thousands of soldiers died on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.

The United States says 1.2 million people were injured or killed in the war.

Why is Donetsk a point of contention in ending the war in Ukraine?

Source: CNN