Two scheduled buses were at the epicenter of the strike, according to the Donetsk Region Prosecutor's Office. The buses were likely hit with a UMPB D-30 SN, a modernized guided aerial bomb, Current Time reported.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the attack. Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said the strike hit a public transport stop where people were present.
Filashkin said that as of 11:10 a.m. local time, 14 people were known to have been wounded. The number of those injured later rose to 19. Photographs published by the regional administration head and the prosecutor's office show both buses burned out completely.
"This is not 'the consequences of war' and not dry statistics. These are people killed by the Russian army. Russia comes to Ukrainian land with death. It strikes our cities, kills our people and multiplies its crimes every day. There is and can be no justification for this," Filashkin said.
The head of the Donetsk administration urged residents of the region to evacuate to safer regions of Ukraine. According to him, rescuers are working at the site.
A day earlier, on October 7, Russia struck a five-story residential building in Pryluky in the Chernihiv region. As of the morning of October 8, 22 people were killed there, five of them children. Another 54 people were injured, including seven children. The search and rescue operation at the strike site ended closer to noon on October 8, Zelensky said. The Insider called that strike the deadliest on Ukraine in the past month.
Ukrainian authorities and international organizations classify Russian army strikes on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure as war crimes by the Russian Federation and emphasize their deliberate nature. Russia denies deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure.