A Russian drone hits a crowded platform at Dnipro station and kills at least 14 people

The drone came in during the morning while an air raid alert was already sounding over Dnipro. It hit a platform at the city's main station where electric train number 866, a regular commuter service to Zaporizhzhia, was standing with passengers around it. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said at least 14 people were killed and at least 14 wounded, six of them in critical condition, including an 11 year old boy, as of October 29. The Ukrainian Air Force's Eastern command said Russia sent four jet powered attack drones toward the region and air defences shot down three of them.

Oleksandr Pertsovsky, who runs the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia, said an elevated threat level had been announced ahead of the strike and evacuation announcements had played, but a large number of people were still on the platform when the drone hit. Dnipro's mayor, Borys Filatov, said the drone struck a civilian electric train. President Volodymyr Zelensky posted images from the platform and called the attack horrific. He said the Russians used a drone against a platform where a regular commuter train and a regular passenger train were standing, and he asked the United States, Europe and the G7 for stronger sanctions against Russia.

Dnipro was not the only city hit on Thursday. Two teenagers were killed on a central street in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, where 23 people were wounded, and three people were killed in a strike on an apartment building in Kremenchuk. The day's toll across the country reached at least 19 dead. Prime Minister Sergiy Koretskyi wrote on Telegram that Russia is deliberately hunting civilians on trains, at stations and in residential buildings, and that there is no justification for it. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, and its military issued no public comment on the Dnipro strike.

The strike landed on the same morning the local ceasefire around Oleshky, in the Kherson region to the south, held for a third day. Moscow has made clear that the six day humanitarian truce applies only to that area. Russian drone and missile attacks on the rail network have grown heavier in recent months while Ukraine works with an acute shortage of air defence missiles, and railway stations have become one of the most dangerous public places in the country.