At least 14 people were killed and more than a dozen wounded, including an 11-year-old boy, when a Russian jet-powered drone struck a crowded platform at the main railway station in Dnipro, central Ukraine, regional officials said Thursday. Ukraine's state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said a passenger train bound for the southern city of Zaporizhzhia was standing at one of the platforms when the drone hit.
Railway chief Oleksandr Pertsovsky said an elevated threat warning had been issued for Dnipro ahead of the strike, "but unfortunately there were still a large number of people on the platform" when it came. Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov called the attack a tragedy, saying the drone had hit an electric civilian train. Images released by Ukrainian rescue services showed a large hole torn through the platform and a blast-damaged train with its windows blown out.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used a drone "to attack a platform where a regular commuter train and a regular passenger train were standing," and renewed his call for further US, European and G7 sanctions on Moscow. He also repeated his criticism of a deal struck earlier this month between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that eased some sanctions on Russia and cleared the way for the US to import Russian diesel.
The Dnipro strike was one of several reported across Ukraine overnight. In Chernihiv, in the north, two 15-year-old girls were killed and at least 25 people, including four children, were wounded by a Russian missile strike on the city centre. In Kremenchuk, in the central Poltava region, three people were killed and 28 injured when a drone attack hit residential buildings and a school. Ukraine's government declared a day of mourning on Friday for both Chernihiv and Dnipro.
Russia's defence ministry has not commented on the Dnipro strike specifically, and has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians, saying its attacks on Ukraine's rail network target infrastructure used to move military personnel and equipment. But the toll on passengers has been rising sharply: of 521 Ukrainian locomotives damaged or destroyed since Russia's 2022 invasion, almost 60% have been hit this year alone, according to Ukrzaliznytsia figures, with overall attacks on rail facilities climbing from 1,206 in 2025 to 1,700 so far in 2026.
The latest strikes came even as a fragile, days-old ceasefire held for a third day in the besieged southern city of Oleshky, according to Ukraine's human rights ombudsman. Separately, Russia accused Ukraine of launching 613 drones overnight at the Moscow region, most of which it said were intercepted, while the Russian capital hosts a two-day Russia-Africa summit attended by delegations from 48 countries.
