KYIV — Russian drone strikes killed at least 19 people across Ukraine on Thursday, in one of the deadliest days of daytime attacks on civilians in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials said. Fourteen of the dead were killed when a jet-powered drone struck a crowded platform at the main railway station in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, as passengers waited to board a train.
Source: Reuters, 29 October 2026
Ukraine's state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia said the drone hit a platform where a commuter train preparing to depart for Zaporizhzhia was standing. People were on the platform despite an elevated-threat alert having been issued, the company's head Oleksandr Pertsovsky said. Dnipro's regional head Oleksandr Hanzha confirmed during the day that the station death toll had risen from 13 to 14, with at least 10 people wounded at the station.
The Dnipro strike was not the only deadly attack of the day. In Kremenchuk, also in central Ukraine, a Russian drone hit a residential building, killing three people and injuring at least 15, the regional governor said. In Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, two 15-year-old girls were killed in a drone attack on a busy central street, and 23 people were wounded there, officials said. President Zelenskyy put the combined toll from the three strikes at 19 killed and 56 injured, including 10 children.
Source: AnewZ, 29 October 2026
"Russia is deliberately hunting civilians: on trains, at stations, in residential buildings," Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretskyi said on the Telegram app, according to Reuters. Zelenskyy described the Dnipro strike as deliberate and called on Ukraine's allies to apply stronger pressure on Moscow, including tougher sanctions. Moscow, like Kyiv, denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Source: CNN, 29 October 2026
The strikes came even as a US-brokered humanitarian ceasefire around Russian-held Oleshky, in the southern Kherson region, entered its third day with neither side reporting violations, as preparations continued for aid deliveries and evacuations. Moscow had made clear the six-day truce applied only to the Kherson region. Russia also said its air defences had intercepted 1,214 Ukrainian drones overnight — a figure Reuters and other outlets could not independently verify.
What is solid
- Ukrainian officials, via Reuters and CNN, put Thursday's toll at 19 killed across Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Chernihiv, with the Dnipro station toll raised from 13 to 14 during the day
- The local humanitarian ceasefire around Oleshky in Kherson region held for a third day, both sides said
What is only claimed
- Russia's claim to have intercepted 1,214 Ukrainian drones overnight is unverified
- Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians; Kyiv says the strikes on the station, homes and a street were deliberate
This story updates Awaaz Punjab's earlier report of the drone strike on Dnipro station, when officials put the toll there at 13. The toll has since risen and the full countrywide picture has emerged. Read the earlier Dnipro station report
Zelenskyy is pressing allies for more air-defence missiles and tougher sanctions, saying Ukraine's defences are stretched by the scale of Russian drone and missile attacks. A possible Putin–Zelenskyy meeting, which US President Donald Trump said this week would be arranged 'very soon', still has no confirmed date or venue.