Title: Ukraine’s Most Lethal Bus Routes: Drivers Who Defy Death

Warning: This report contains disturbing details.

Earlier this month, Anatoly Dmytrov was navigating his bus along Route 14 in Kherson, a southern Ukrainian city. The vehicle was packed, with passengers standing in the aisles, when a Russian drone struck at an intersection. "All the windows got smashed," Anatoly recalled. "I barely made it to the next stop, where there was a shelter. I looked in the mirror and saw blood. I thought - oh, I need to get to the shelter quickly because sometimes they send a second drone immediately."

In the aftermath of the explosion, Anatoly was in a state of shock. He noted that at least eight passengers sustained injuries. "It's no fun working here," he said. "This happens almost every day, they've started hunting buses down. You go to work and you have no idea if you are going to come home."

The municipal transport company where Anatoly is employed reports that these assaults began last year and are escalating. According to a statement provided to the BBC, public transportation has emerged as a priority target for Russian drone operators. The statistics are stark: this year alone, three employees have been killed, eight injured, and 29 vehicles—comprising 21 trolleybuses and eight buses—damaged. Local authorities confirm that six privately operated buses were also struck in 2026.

Kherson, which had a pre-war population of approximately 300,000, is now home to an estimated 65,000 residents. Although firmly under Ukrainian control, the city serves as the administrative center for one of the five regions Russia illegally claims. Following its occupation in the initial days of the 2022 full-scale invasion, Kherson was liberated by Ukrainian forces in the autumn of that year. Since then, it has endured relentless bombardment from Russian forces positioned across the Dnipro River.

Rita Dobrinova, a manager at the municipal transport company, warns that the aerial threat is intensifying, particularly due to the adoption of optic fiber cables by drone operators. These cables render the drones immune to electronic jamming. "Some are just hovering, waiting," she explained. "Others are scout drones. They look the driver right in the eye through the windscreen."

Dobrinova highlighted a particularly tragic incident on April 11, when a bomb dropped directly onto a driver’s head, piercing the cabin’s roof. Authorities in Kherson have implemented various protective measures, including anti-drone nets covering busy streets to shield pedestrians and traffic. Drivers are also equipped with helmets, bullet-proof vests, and drone detectors known as chuyka. However, the utility of these detectors is limited; they only identify drones using standard navigation frequencies. Machines utilizing fiber optics or new frequencies remain undetected.

The company currently operates a fleet of roughly 30 buses. "I can't say each one of them will meet a drone every day," Ms. Dobrinova said, "But the drone detector will beep once in an hour or an hour and a half. All it tells you is that there's a drone around. It will show your distance to it in metres or kilometres." Protocol dictates that if the chuyka sounds, drivers must halt, disembark passengers, and guide them to the nearest shelter.

The journey to work itself can be fatal. On May 3, another driver, Eduard Zadorozhny, was being transported to his shift in a company van with colleagues when it was targeted. "They hit us, we got out, and when an ambulance arrived to help us, they hit the ambulance," Eduard recounted. Deliberately attacking medical personnel constitutes a war crime under international law. "What they do is hit you, and then they hit you again. They've turned people's lives into a horror show," Eduard told the BBC. He suffered a concussion, while an engineer colleague was killed in the attack.

Despite the extreme peril, bus drivers in Kherson continue to report for duty. When asked why they persist, the answer was simple: "We need to get people to their pharmacies and hospitals."

Source: BBC News Generated at: 2026-05-31 23:40:57 UTC