Russian attacks kill five on train in northeast, three in Odesa, Ukraine says

By Iryna Nazarchuk and Anna Pruchnicka

KYIV/ODESA, Ukraine, Jan 27 (Reuters) – 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.

Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said two children and a pregnant woman were among the wounded in the strikes on the city. Dozens of residential buildings, a church, a kindergarten and a high school were damaged, he said.

By midday on Tuesday, rescue workers were still digging through a mountain of rubble outside a building where emergency officials said two residents had been killed. It was ripped open across several floors.

Resident Denys Tsybulskiy stood outside the building trying to reach his neighbour, who he said was trapped under the debris but had showed signs of using his phone.

“He can’t pick up the phone, he can’t talk, but there’s hope that he’s laying there,” he said.

An elderly man looked on as rescuers carried away the body of his 52-year-old daughter.

The overnight attack also led to the “colossal destruction” of an energy facility in the city, leading private power provider DTEK said in a statement.

Odesa, on Ukraine’s strategically critical Black Sea coast, has come under increasing attack in recent months. 

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 40% of households had no electricity a day after a combined drone and missile attack.

Ukraine’s air force said Russian troops had launched 165 drones overnight – 135 of them neutralised by air defences.

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.

(Reporting by Iryna Nazarchuk in Odesa and Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Gareth Jones, Alison Williams, Ron Popeski and David Gregorio)