Zelensky accuses the US of inaction after a Russian bomb kills at least 30 on Kramatorsk buses

A Russian guided bomb hit two passenger buses in Kramatorsk on Thursday morning, killing at least 30 people and wounding 18, Ukrainian officials said. The strike occurred around 10 a.m. on Yuvileina Street, next to a dental clinic and a public transport stop. A second bus caught fire. Three more people were killed by shelling in the nearby village of Bilenke. Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said Russia had deliberately targeted buses carrying passengers in order to kill as many civilians as possible.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the dead could not be identified because of the severity of their injuries. He wrote on Telegram that the strike would not go without a response and that Russia was trying to destroy all life in Donbas. Local prosecutors posted images of a burnt-out bus and bodies on the road. Public transport in the area was suspended. Rescue work was interrupted by subsequent Russian drone attacks, according to the city's military administration.

Kramatorsk and the neighbouring city of Slovyansk form part of the line of towns that Ukrainian forces still hold in Donetsk region. Russian forces have been pressing toward that line for months. The Thursday strike was one of the deadliest single attacks on civilians this year. It came a day after a Russian missile flattened a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, in Chernihiv region, killing 22 people including five children.

On Friday Zelensky accused the United States of being unwilling to help Ukraine. Speaking in Pryluky, where he was accompanying British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, he said Washington was pursuing economic ties with Moscow while also trying to mediate the war. He asked the United States to open Starlink more fully for Ukrainian forces so they could better target Russian ballistic missile launchers. He noted that the United States had expanded Starlink access when it was responding to Iran. Ukrainian negotiators were due to meet US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the United States on Friday and Saturday.

Zelensky put the two-day death toll from Russian strikes at more than 70, with 215 wounded. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and 19 wounded in morning attacks that also cut power and stopped the metro. The State Emergency Service said the Kramatorsk toll later rose to 33 in some counts. Filashkin first reported 30 dead and 18 wounded, then raised the number of injured. Some reports on Friday cited 35 dead in the bus attack alone.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians. Ukrainian police said the buses were hit with a glide bomb, a munition that is released from an aircraft and glides to its target, and that is harder to intercept than a ballistic missile. The same class of weapon has been used repeatedly against front-line towns where air defence is thin.

The political timing is sharp. On the same day Zelensky was criticising Washington, President Trump announced that Russia would supply diesel to US and world markets under a temporary sanctions waiver. Zelensky's response was that gifts to Putin would not bring peace. The bus attack gives him a concrete civilian death toll to set against that announcement. Whether the talks in the United States produce more air defence or expanded satellite access will determine whether the criticism remains rhetorical or becomes a break in the negotiating track that both sides have said they still want to keep open.