Russian Drone Attacks Train In Ukraine, Dozens Of People Injured

UNSPLASH/Dasha Bakanova ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - Two Russian unmanned aircraft (drone) attacked a train at a station in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, killing one person and injuring about 30 others. Ukrainian Foreign Minister accused Moscow of deliberately attacking passenger trains.

"The brutal attack of the Russian drone at the train station in Shostka, Sumy region," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, posting a video of the passenger carriage being destroyed and burned as well as other carriages whose windows were broken. reported by Reuters, Saturday, October 4.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of deliberately launching two attacks on passenger trains.

"This is one of Russia's most brutal tactics called 'double tap', when the second attack hit rescue teams and people who were being evacuated," he said in a statement released by his ministry on social media.

The governor of the Sumy region, by Hryhorov, said eight people had been taken to the hospital.

"Russia may not be aware that they are targeting civilians. This is terrorism, which is not entitled to be ignored by the world," Zelenskyy wrote.

Moscow has stepped up its airstrikes against Ukraine's rail infrastructure, hitting it almost every day over the past two months.

Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in its war in Ukraine, although thousands have died at the hands of its military.

In a video interview from the train on its way to the site of the attack, the CEO of Ukraine's state rail company, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, told Reuters the drones targeted the locomotive, also damaged the carriage.

"Essentially, they are hunting for the locomotive," he said

He said the train that was attacked was a local commuter train and another train heading to the capital, Kyiv.

The head of the railway added that there was only civilian traffic at the station, and he believes this is an attempt to make areas like Shostka, which are about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Russia's borders, unsafe for passenger traffic.