At least 30 people have been killed in a Russian glide bomb attack on two civilian buses in the eastern front line city of Kramatorsk, rescue officials say.

Authorities said three people were also killed in the village of Bilenke, part of the Kramatorsk community.

Another 18 people were wounded, said Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin, accusing Russia of targeting buses carrying passengers to kill as many civilians as possible.

Kramatorsk and neighbouring Slovyansk are part of a so-called fortress belt that Moscow is trying to seize as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim to the entire Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “This strike will not go without our response.”

In a post on Telegram, he said: “Russia is trying to destroy all life in Donbas, and the world needs to react to this. React harshly – exactly as the Russians deserve for all the deaths they have caused.”

Images posted by local prosecutors showed the burning metal shell of the bus along with debris and some of the victims on the road.

Moscow is yet to comment on the latest attack. It follows a dramatic surge in Russian attacks across the country and a heavy increase in civilian casualties.

According to the UN, Ukraine saw more civilians killed by August this year than were killed in all of 2025.

In one single attack that destroyed a five-storey block of flats in Pryluky east of Kyiv early on Wednesday, 22 people were killed, including five children. Three of the children were only one year old.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, meeting Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday, said the attack in Pryluky showed Putin’s “evil intent and evil strategy”.

He announced “more sanctions on Russia, on the war machine of Putin, on the shadow fleet, on the oil companies, on the crypto, on the financing of the war” and told Zelensky the UK would stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes for you to prevail in this conflict”.