Russian drone strike on Ukraine bus near front kills 5

KYIV: A Russian drone strike on a bus near the frontline in southern Ukraine killed five people on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. “Five people have been killed and at least seven wounded as a result of an enemy strike on a minibus in the Nikopol district. The Russians hit the bus with a drone,” Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on social media. Nikopol sits on the opposite bank of the Dnieper river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian troops since the first days of their 2022 invasion. Photos posted by officials showed windows blown out of a white minibus, with a trail of blood streaming down the side of the vehicle. Another seven people were wounded, Ganzha said. Civilian deaths in Ukraine are running at their highest level since the first months of the war, according to the United Nations, amid an escalation in strikes.