Russian drones hit Dnipro trains, killing 14, as Oleshky truce holds

Two passenger trains sitting at a station in Dnipro took a direct hit from a Russian jet-powered drone Thursday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 14 others, Ukrainian officials said. Among the injured was a 40-year-old man whose legs had to be amputated. CBS News reported a combined death toll of at least 16 across the day's strikes, with 56 people hurt, 10 of them children.

Elsewhere, a Russian cruise missile killed two 15-year-old girls in the northern city of Chernihiv, and three more civilians died when a drone struck an apartment block in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine. The attacks kept hammering civilian targets even as a localized truce held just to the south.

That ceasefire, centered on the devastated Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, ran into a third day with no reported violations. Both Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, said the sides were honoring the deal, which is meant to run six days and open a corridor for food and medical supplies to roughly 2,000 trapped residents. Demining teams are clearing roads, and aid was set to start rolling in Friday. Lantratova said the operation took five months to put together, and Russian and Ukrainian representatives met in the Belarusian city of Homel before flying together toward the Kherson region.

The quiet credited to U.S. first lady Melania Trump — with a push from Pope Leo XIV — has changed the mood in nearby Ukrainian-held Kherson. Coffee kiosk owner Nataliia Myronenko, 42, said customers now linger at lunchtime and in the evening instead of racing past. "It's a breath of freedom, when you don't look at the sky," she said, though she added: "we understand it will end soon." Volunteer Ksenia Arkhipova said about 1,000 Oleshky residents have told her they want out, and that the Ukrainian delegation's presence matters because people fear Russian authorities will flag anyone with pro-Kyiv views.

The skies stayed busy regardless. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 1,214 Ukrainian drones overnight, one of Kyiv's largest barrage yet, with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin saying about half were headed for the capital. Both capitals are angling for favor in Washington ahead of possible three-way talks next month, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected at a G20 ministerial meeting in Atlanta starting Friday, per ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Putin, meanwhile, had kind words for Elon Musk, calling him "a genius" and saying Moscow is coordinating orbital activity with the tech titan as it builds its own Starlink rival — a service whose military-grade Starshield version Ukraine says has been hit with sudden limits.