KYIV/ODESA, Ukraine--A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in northeastern Ukraine killed five people, prosecutors said on Tuesday, an attack denounced as terrorism by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as he called for intensified pressure on Moscow.
The attack set a train ablaze hours after Russian drones hammered the southern city of Odesa overnight, killing three people and wounding 25 as Moscow intensified its strikes aimed at pushing Kyiv to give up fighting.
In Kyiv, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said 710,000 residents remained without power in the aftermath of Moscow's attack on the capital last week. Russia has waged a winter campaign of strikes on energy infrastructure even as Kyiv has been under pressure to agree to a U.S.-backed peace deal to end the nearly four-year war.
In northeastern Kharkiv Region, prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the strike on the train by a village. Photographs posted online showed at least two carriages in flames next to a snow-covered railbed.
"In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be considered in exactly the same way – purely as terrorism," Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app."Our cause – and this is what should unite all normal people in the world – is to ensure the progress of protecting life. This is possible through pressure on Russia."
Zelenskiy had earlier decried a "brutal" attack by more than 50 drones on Odesa as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators prepare for new talks on Sunday."Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war," Zelenskiy wrote on X.
Russian and Ukrainian officials are expected to hold another round of U.S.-brokered talks on Sunday after meeting last weekend in Abu Dhabi. Writing on X, Zelenskiy urged Kyiv's allies to boost pressure on Moscow, which has demanded Ukraine cede land that Russian forces have been unable to capture before it stops fighting. "We expect the United States, Europe, and other partners not to remain silent about this and to remember that achieving real peace requires pressure precisely on Moscow."
Ukraine is asking partners, particularly the U.S., for strong security guarantees in the event of a peace deal that would prevent Russia from attacking again.A source familiar with internal discussions told Reuters on Tuesday that the U.S. has told Ukraine it must sign on to a peace deal with Russia in order to get U.S. security guarantees.
