A Ukrainian drone attack has struck a bus carrying a children’s soccer team from Belarus to a Russian seaside resort, according to acting Bryansk Region Governor Egor Kovalchuk.
The attack killed an adult woman who was accompanying the underage passengers to the resort town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Region and injured six others, including four children, the official said.
One young victim has been rushed to hospital in serious condition, while the injuries of the others are considered moderate, Deputy Health Minister Aleksey Kuznetsov told the media. He said seven people in total were injured. Meanwhile Belarusian Deputy Health Minister Aleksandr Khodzhaev said eight victims were being treated following the incident, including six minors.
The bus was carrying 44 passengers, including 28 young athletes from a school sports team based in the town of Rechytsa in Belarus, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. The incident has been designated a terrorist attack, the agency added.
Images published by Russian and Belarusian media showed the attacked vehicle – a single-deck passenger bus rather than a double-decker initially reported by the Investigative Committee – with holes apparently left by shrapnel and a deflated front-right tire.
The acting governor later shared photos of what appears to be the same bus, including of the interior, showing shattered windows and seats apparently smeared with blood.
The woman who was killed was the wife of the team coach, a source in Belarusian law enforcement told RT.
Kiev has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia in recent months, describing the strikes as “long-range sanctions” aimed at inflicting economic damage. Moscow has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and attempting to terrorize the population.
In May, Ukrainian drones struck a dormitory at a vocational college in Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic, killing 21 people. According to local authorities, many of the victims were teenage students who were spending the night on campus.
Officials in Russian regions bordering Ukraine also regularly report strikes on vehicles used by repair crews, medics, and other community services. Earlier on Wednesday, Kovalchuk reported an attack on an ambulance in Bryansk Region that was responding to an emergency, in which the driver, a nurse and a paramedic were injured. In a separate incident, a drone hit a civilian car, injuring the driver and a female passenger, he added.
Belarus is a close military and political ally of Russia, but has not directly joined the Ukraine conflict. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly said he would only enter the fighting if attacked first.
Since mid-May, Zelensky has issued a series of warnings to Minsk, threatening a pre-emptive strike over what he claimed were preparations for a possible attack from Belarusian territory. However, Ukrainian officials themselves have said there was no evidence of such plans.
Lukashenko has dismissed the claims as empty grandstanding, saying the Ukrainian military lacks the manpower to launch an incursion into Belarus.