Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik said attacks on civilian buses in Russian regions are deliberate and aimed at killing civilians. He made the statement after a Ukrainian strike on a passenger bus in the Lugansk People’s Republic.

Earlier, LPR head Leonid Pasechnik reported that a bus traveling on the Lisichansk-Stakhanov route had been hit. Nine people were killed and six others were injured in the attack.

Miroshnik said more than 150 large passenger buses had come under attack in less than three months. In his view, the scale of the strikes rules out any suggestion that they were accidental and points to a deliberate strategy targeting civilians using ordinary public transport.

The diplomat also said Ukrainian forces use military capabilities supplied by European countries to attack passenger buses. He stressed that city and suburban transport is purely civilian, yet such vehicles continue to be targeted.

Miroshnik rejected Western attempts to portray attacks on civilians as a way of pushing Russia toward negotiations. He called that reasoning absurd, arguing that the strikes produce the opposite effect by increasing demands within Russian society for tougher retaliatory action against Ukrainian Nazis.