Volnovakha bus attack

The Volnovakha bus attack was an attack on a highway checkpoint near the village of Buhas outside of the Volnovakha municipality in the Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on 13 January 2015. It resulted in the deaths of 12 passengers of an intercity bus and injuries to 18 others in the area. The attack was the largest single loss of life since the signing of the Minsk Protocol in September 2014, which attempted to halt the War in Donbass. The incident has been labeled an "act of terror" by both the Ukrainian authorities as well as the rebels.

Initially, separatists took responsibility for this incident, which they thought was a successful destruction of the Ukrainian roadblock. After the information about civilian bus hit the news, they denied having "even technical possibilities" to shell that area. OSCE Special Monitoring Mission inspecting the place of incident assessed from its study of five craters that they were caused by "rockets fired from a north-north-eastern direction". HRW investigation has concluded that "The attacked checkpoint is the northern-most government checkpoint before the front line with rebel forces. The tube-like shape of the craters clearly indicated that the rockets had come from the northeast."

The checkpoint named "Buhas" is located on the H20 highway at the intersection with another road accessing the city of Volnovakha. Beside Buhas and Volnovakha, there also is a village of Blyzhnie.