With bodies lying on the platform and emergency workers responding at Dnipro station, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the Russian drone strike as a “horrific attack” on passenger trains. He shared images from the scene on social media and called for stronger sanctions against Russia.
The attack killed at least 13 people and wounded more than a dozen at the railway station in central Ukraine on Thursday.
Russia launched four jet-powered drones towards the Dnipro area at around 11 a.m., Ukraine’s air force said. It intercepted three, while a fourth got through and hit the platform.
Train No. 866, travelling from Dnipro to Zaporizhzhia, was standing at the platform as passengers waited to board. Zaporizhzhia is approximately a two-hour journey south of Dnipro.
An air-raid alarm had already sounded. An elevated threat level had been announced, yet a large number of people remained on the platform, according to Oleksandr Pertsovsky, chief of the rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia. “An elevated threat level had been announced. But unfortunately there were still a large number of people on the platform.”
The platform had been crowded with civilians waiting for scheduled trains when the drone struck.
Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, reported 13 deaths and at least five people wounded.
Six of those wounded were in critical condition, including an 11-year-old boy. A 40-year-old man had both legs amputated after the strike.
Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, confirmed that a civilian electric train had been hit and called the attack a “tragedy.”
Zelenskyy said: “Sanctions against Moscow and its war machine must not be eased for as long as this Russian war continues.”
His call followed a deal struck this month between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that saw some sanctions on Russia eased.
Authorities also reported at least five other deaths from Russian attacks across Ukraine on Thursday. A strike in the centre of Chernigiv killed two 15-year-old girls and wounded more than a dozen people.
Ukraine’s railways have remained a target since the first days of Russia’s 2022 invasion. Russian drones have destroyed hundreds of locomotives and killed several railway workers, while passengers were evacuated from more than 5,800 Ukrainian train services in September alone because of drone threats.
Commercial air travel in Ukraine is shut down because of the war, leaving trains as the main form of long-distance travel for civilians.
The Dnipro attack recalls the strike on Kramatorsk railway station on April 8, 2022, when a Tochka-U missile killed 61 people and injured more than 160 as around 4,000 civilians gathered to board evacuation trains.
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