The daylight attack came as a regular commuter train and a regular passenger train stood at the platform in Dnipro. Ukraine's air force said three of the four jet-powered drones launched in the strike were shot down; the fourth evaded defences and hit the station.

Drones hit platform where trains were standing

According to Zelensky, the drones struck a platform where a regular commuter train and a regular passenger train were standing. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted three jet-powered drones in the daytime attack, but a fourth evaded defences and hit the station.

Images released by Ukraine's emergency services showed:

• •bodies lying on the platform
• •rescuers helping victims to safety
• •two burnt-out passenger trains with their windows shattered

Ukraine Railways head Oleksandr Pertsovsky said an elevated threat level had been announced at the station, but that there were still a large number of people on the platform when the strike came.

Zelensky urges allies not to ease sanctions

Zelensky described the attack as "horrific" and urged Kyiv's allies not to ease sanctions on Moscow.

He tied that call to this month's agreement between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin easing some sanctions to let Russia release diesel onto global markets. Zelensky questioned how many terrorist strikes Russia had carried out against Ukrainian civilians since sanctions were lifted on some oligarchs and the energy sector.

Railways under repeated drone fire

The strike on the Dnipro train station fit a pattern that has defined the Ukraine war for Ukraine's railways since 2022. Russia has fired drones at Ukrainian trains since the first days of its invasion, destroying hundreds of locomotives and killing several railway workers.

The scale of the threat to passengers is large:

• •In September alone, passengers were evacuated from more than 5,800 Ukrainian train services because of the threat of Russian drone strikes, the national railway operator said.
• •Trains remain a vital form of transport, with journeys between east and west taking up to 24 hours.

Deadly attacks elsewhere and stalled diplomacy

The Dnipro deaths were not the only ones on Thursday. At least five other people were killed across Ukraine in separate Russian attacks, local officials said. In Chernigiv, a strike on the city centre killed two 15-year-old girls and wounded more than a dozen people, military administration head Dmytro Bryzhynsky said. In Kremenchuk, a drone hit a multi-storey residential building, killing two people and wounding several others, including a six-year-old, according to the local governor.

Russia has also intensified drone and missile attacks on energy sites around major Ukrainian cities, which Kyiv says is a bid to plunge the country into cold and darkness in winter. The Kremlin this week vowed not to let up in the overall pace of the war as the sides prepare to restart stalled talks under US mediation.

One narrow exception to the fighting is holding. A fragile local ceasefire in Russian-occupied Oleshky was holding into its third day, both countries said. Zelensky said on Wednesday it would be a "huge success" if the ceasefire, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, allowed the evacuation of stranded citizens. Oleshky has been under Russian occupation since 2022, where residents have faced months of shortages of food, water and medicine.

Russia and Ukraine are to meet next month with US envoys to discuss ways to end the war, though no firm dates have been set after several previous rounds failed.