President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the strike on older people picking up their pensions should prompt a global response.
A Russian bomb exploded on Tuesday in a crowd of older people as they picked up pension payments in a village near the front line in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 23 people and injuring 18, the authorities said.
Bodies of victims could be seen in a video shared online by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and independently confirmed by The New York Times as showing Yarova, the village that was struck. The blast occurred in the town’s center, hitting near a church, cemetery and school.
When the bomb detonated, people were lined up near a state postal vehicle to receive their monthly cash retirement payments. The state postal service, Ukrposhta, delivers the money to those in villages who cannot travel to banks.
Mr. Zelensky wrote on X that the strike, the latest in Russia’s unrelenting attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities, should prompt a global reply.
“A response is needed from the United States,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. “A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G-20. Strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death.”
On Sunday, after Russia launched a huge barrage of drones and missiles at Kyiv and other cities, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration was prepared to “increase pressure” economically on Russia to get it to negotiate. Europe is planning a new round of sanctions against Russia.
The bombing in the village came after the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that sanctions would not “be able to force the Russian Federation to change its consistent position,” indicating that Moscow did not plan to stop fighting anytime soon.
According to the head of the Ukrainian postal service, Ihor Smiliansky, the state-owned company regularly changes the distribution point for pensions in villages near the front for security reasons.
This time, the vehicle was parked under trees to be less visible to Russia’s drones, he said. It is possible that a collaborator gave away the coordinates to Russia, he said, though he offered no direct evidence to support that claim.
In addition to the large numbers of older people who were killed or injured when the bomb hit the crowd, the postal worker making the delivery was badly injured in her leg, Mr. Smiliansky said. “Luckily our workers go through first aid trainings and the driver could stop the bleeding and she is now safe in a hospital,” he said.
Mr. Smiliansky said he believed that Russia had deliberately targeted the postal vehicle and the crowd around it, adding that it was the first time a Russian bomb had hit a pension distribution site.
The head of the local military administration told Ukrainian media that it would consider moving future payment distributions to safer locations.
