On February 1st, a Russian drone struck a bus in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region in the town of Ternivka. This resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people and left 7 injured.

The bus was transporting mine workers home after their shift at a mine operated by DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company. In an article published on CNN, Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Minister had stated that, “a Shahed drone struck near the bus, causing the bus to swerve into a fence” (Markina Tanno, Feb 1). As the injured passengers were advocating the bus, another drone was directed directly at the civilians. Operators from Russia clearly saw and knew that the target was not anyone from the military but citizens going about their day but still made the decision to attack anyway.

Meanwhile there have been 2 more separate incidents of Russia attacking with drones that occurred in 2 different cities on February 1st in Ukraine. According to the article published on CBC, “at least nine people had been wounded in Russian strikes on a maternity hospital and a residential building in the city of Zaporizhzhia” (Peleschuk Feb 1). In the same article it was mentioned that in the city of Dnipro, a drone struck a residential building killing 2 people.

There are efforts ongoing to prevent Russian forces from using Starlink to guide their drones over Ukraine. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister confirmed that the city of Kyiv is working with Elon Musk’ s SpaceX company to make sure only Starlink internet terminals will be able to function in the country.