Forty Children On Bus In Ukraine Narrowly Escape Russian Drone Strike

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine -- A Russian drone struck close to a bus carrying 40 children in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, as the children were heading to a resort in western Ukraine amid continued air attacks between Moscow and Kyiv.

Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on May 3 that the morning strike targeted a gas station near where the bus was parked. While most of the children were evacuated from the vehicle before the strike, a 10-year-old boy did not get out in time and was injured.

Standing in front of the bus with shattered windows, the driver, Serhiy, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that a shard of glass had "pierced straight through" the boy's arm.

"The [children] were so happy to have a rest and get away from all of this. But we didn't make it," he said. "[One boy] didn't mange to get out in time. His arm was hit by shrapnel and it pierced straight through."

Serhiy added that he was driving a group of children from the regularly shelled city of Zaporizhzhya to the popular Carpathian resort of Bukovel in Ukraine's western Ivano-Frankivsk region, far from the front line.

In his statement on Telegram, Hanzha said at least five adults were also injured in the attack, including a 21-year-old pregnant woman.

He later added that another attack on the regional capital, Dnipro, targeted a local dormitory, killing at least one person and injuring 11 others. Pictures posted online by Hanzha showed the building's roof demolished following the strike.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, local authorities reported deadly strikes in the country's southern Odesa and Kherson regions. More than a dozen people were reported injured in at least three other regions.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who arrived in Yerevan on the same day for the European Political Community Summit, said Kyiv had targeted two Russian shadow fleet ships near the country's major port city of Novorossiisk.

"These tankers had been actively used to transport oil -- not anymore," he wrote in his X post. "Ukraine's long-range capabilities will continue to be developed comprehensively -- at sea, in the air, and on land."

In a subsequent post, Zelenskyy said a Russian missile carrier, "along with a patrol boat and another tanker from the shadow oil fleet," in Russia’s port city of Primorsk -- around 1,000 kilometers from the front line -- were also hit by Ukrainian forces.

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While there was no immediate comment on either of the attacks from Moscow, Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels posted user-generated footage appearing to show Kyiv's latest attack on Primorsk.

As the war, now in its fifth year, shows no signs of easing, Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months.

The Ukrainian military has sought to curtail Moscow's exports and hamper its ability to take advantage of a spike in global energy prices prompted by the Iran war and Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

 
Forty Children On Bus In Ukraine Narrowly Escape Russian Drone Strike

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