Kramatorsk: 33 Dead After Guided Bomb Hits Buses

A Russian guided aerial bomb hit two city buses at a stop in Kramatorsk on Thursday, October 8, and the death toll rose through the day from 12 to 30, then to 33. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) reports 33 dead, while Donetsk Region Governor Vadim Filashkin said another 18 people were injured. Drones also struck Kyiv overnight and again that morning, a day after the attacks on Priluky and Kyiv that we reported on.

How the casualty count changed

The Donetsk Region prosecutor’s office says the attack began at 10:00 a.m. The first report was 12 dead and 14 injured, after which prosecutors revised the toll to 30 dead and 18 injured. DSNS later said 33 people had been killed. In its first statement, the prosecutor’s office said:

“Russian troops carried out an attack on Kramatorsk at 10:00 a.m. on October 8, 2026. Two buses were hit.”

Sources differ on what exactly was hit. President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Kyiv Independent describe a bus stop, while prosecutors and Ukrainska Pravda write about two buses. DSNS says fires broke out in at least two buses. Police say it was a glide bomb, and Ukrainska Pravda adds that precision-guided aerial bombs are believed to have been used.

Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets posted photos of a burned-out bus and bodies on the ground on X. He said:

“Russia is systematically destroying Kramatorsk and terrorizing civilians.”

The military administrations of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk suspended all public transport in the two cities.

What Donetsk Region officials say

Filashkin wrote on Telegram:

“These are not ‘consequences of war,’ nor dry statistics. These are people killed by the Russian army.”

The governor added that Russians are targeting civilians: “Russians are targeting civilians. For them, a bus full of passengers is an attractive target.” The Kramatorsk city council said in a statement: “Once again, Russians have hit a place with absolutely no military targets.”

According to Filashkin, four people had already been killed and six injured in the Donetsk region that morning before this strike. Over 24 hours the region was shelled 31 times, and 256 people were evacuated from the front line, 32 of them children.

Buses in Kramatorsk have been targeted before. The city council said that on October 2, at about 7:08 a.m., a Russian FPV drone hit a passenger bus that was already running its route, injuring two people. Russian forces have stepped up drone and guided bomb strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in the so-called fortress belt, the backbone of Ukraine’s defense in Donetsk Region, according to local officials cited by ABC.

Kyiv: drones, power and water

The Ukrainian Air Force says Russia launched 142 Shahed drones overnight into October 8, 82 of them jet-powered, and that 126 were shot down or jammed.

Figures for the morning attack on the capital vary. According to the city military administration, four people died in the morning strike. Mayor Vitali Klitschko first reported one dead and 11 injured, then said a drone hit a four-story office building in the Solomianskyi district, killing two people and injuring two. The city military administration said in the afternoon that a fourth person had died in the hospital. At 1:11 p.m., Klitschko said 14 people were injured, eight of them in the hospital. Ukrainska Pravda’s earlier report mentions one person killed in Kyiv.

The overnight attack is described differently. The Kyiv Independent, citing the city military administration, reports that four people were killed and 21 injured across four districts during the night. N1 relays an emergency services statement: a fire broke out in an apartment block, the ninth floor was partly destroyed, firefighters found two bodies in one apartment, and 22 people were rescued, eight of them children. The available reports do not make clear whether the overnight and morning casualties overlap, so we do not add them together.

The effects reached the utility networks as well. DTEK introduced emergency power cuts at 10:00 a.m. in the Brovary, Bucha, Vyshhorod and Boryspil districts of Kyiv Region. The city military administration warned of possible water supply interruptions on the right bank of Kyiv, because a drop in grid power reduced pressure in the water system, especially in the Holosiivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, Solomianskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts. DSNS also reported a fire at a logistics facility in the Bucha district after a drone strike.