AJ
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that the ceasefire on Ukrainian energy would last until February 1, and it was soon clear the ceasefire was over, following a drone strike on a bus full of miners.
Photos of the attacked burned out bus were made public by the Deputy Mayor of Ternivka Vadim Dobrovolsky, while the Head of the Independent Miners’ Union of Ukraine Mykhailo Volynets noted that four drones targeted a coal mining enterprise, along with the bus that was carrying miners on a shift transfer.
“Such an ‘energy truce’, such negotiations with Muscovite vampires, who have purposefully and cynically targeted the people on whom today’s energy sector is based, the most difficult heating season in the country’s history,” wrote Vlynets.
Sixteen miners were killed in the attack, while another 17 were injured, with 15 in hospital, and most of them in a serious condition.
DTEK CEO Maksym Timchenko said: “This attack was the largest simultaneous loss for DTEK since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion and one of the darkest days in the company’s history.”
According to Sergei Breskrestnov, an advisor of the Defence Minister, the Russians deliberately hit a civilian bus carrying people, claiming that a group of ‘shaheds’ on online control were flying along the road when the pilot of the first drone saw the bus below and decided to attack.
“The Shahed hit next to the bus, the driver lost control under the influence of the blast wave and drove into a fence, the injured people began to leave the bus, helping each other,” Brekrestnov said, adding: “The operators from the territory of Russia 100% saw and recognised the target as a civilian, saw that it was not a military person, and made a conscious decision to attack.”
According to the morning report by the Ukrainian Air Force, one Iskander ballistic missile was used to target Ukraine last night, although monitors and trackers suggested there were two missiles flying together, and both targeted a 330kW substation in a railway junction on the border of Zaporizhzhia.
