At least 30 people were killed and 18 others wounded Thursday when Russia attacked two passenger buses in Kramatorsk, near the front line in eastern Ukraine, authorities said. “So far, the death toll from the attack on buses this morning has risen to 30. Eighteen people were injured,” the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office reported. The governor’s office gave the same toll and said public transportation had been suspended. Read moreRussia launches one of its largest attacks against Ukraine, killing at least 21 civilians. Ukraine’s national police said Russia had attacked the buses with a glider bomb. Kramatorsk is one of the key cities that Russia has yet to capture in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow claims as its own. It has been a logistics and supply center for the Ukrainian army for much of the war and is part of the so-called “belt of fortresses” that troops struggle to maintain. Russian forces have approached the eastern edge of the city, prompting calls for remaining civilians to relocate to safer regions of Ukraine. Thursday’s attack, which occurred at 10:00 am (0700 GMT), came a day after a Russian missile hit an apartment block in the northern Chernigiv region, killing 22 people, including five children. Kramatorsk City Council said it was “another horrendous crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population.” “Once again, the Russians have attacked a place where there are absolutely no military objectives,” he added. Three more people were killed in a Russian attack in kyiv, according to the city’s mayor. Ukraine fires nearly 900 drones at Russia, Moscow says. To display this YouTube content, you need to enable ad tracking and audience measurement. OK Manage my options One of your browser extensions appears to be blocking the video player from loading. To view this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again Cover image: © France 24 Drone attacks Yandex data center Also on Thursday, a drone caused a fire in a data center of the Russian technology company Yandex, it reported to AFP, in the first attack of its kind in Russia. Unverified images posted on social media showed plumes of thick black smoke billowing from the roof of the building, which the company said was in the central Ryazan region, located southeast of Moscow. Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up long-range attacks on each other in recent months, with recent Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian data centers and logistics warehouses. The former director of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation claimed kyiv was responsible for the attack, writing on Telegram: “Two can play this game.” Yandex is the largest technology company in Russia. Often called “Russia’s Google,” the company runs the country’s most popular search engine as well as a food and taxi-ordering app used by tens of millions of people across the Russian-speaking world. “A drone attack caused a fire at the Yandex data center in Sasovo, affecting part of its infrastructure,” a Yandex spokesperson told AFP, without specifying the origin of the drone. “There are no casualties and emergency services are on site to deal with the consequences. The data center has completely stopped working and some Yandex services may not be available to users,” the spokesperson added. Ryazan Regional Governor Pavel Malkov said on Telegram on Thursday that two Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the region overnight and noted that “the roof of a business caught fire” in the Sasovo area. Sasovo is about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Moscow. Downdetector Russia, a website that monitors Internet outages, showed a large increase in user complaints starting in the early hours of Thursday. Andriy Kovalenko, former head of Ukraine’s official Counter-Disinformation Center, posted an image on Telegram purporting to show the attack. “Two can play in this game. Ukrainian forces attacked a Yandex data center in the Ryazan region,” he wrote. A data center is a building that houses IT infrastructure, often servers and electronic equipment that ensure the smooth functioning of Internet services. Ukrainian forces also attacked Gazprom’s Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery and petrochemical complex in the Bashkortostan region of central Russia, kyiv’s military said. In a statement, the General Staff said the attack had caused a fire. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)