Dnipro station struck: facing a war on civilians, France must choose consistency

On Thursday 29 October, in the late morning, a Russian drone struck a platform at the railway station in Dnipro, a major city in east-central Ukraine. At least 14 people were killed, according to Ukrainian authorities cited by BFMTV and the Kyiv Independent. A few hours later, the capital was targeted in turn. This sequence came as a rare local truce, negotiated with American support, was still holding in the Kherson region.

The facts: a station, a train, an alert

According to the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia, a jet-powered drone hit the platform where a train bound for Zaporizhzhia was standing. Passengers were still there despite the air-raid alert, the company said. The same day, five other civilians were killed in Chernihiv, Kremenchuk and the Zaporizhzhia region, BFMTV reports.

During the night, several ballistic missiles targeted Kyiv, where one person was killed, according to the Kyiv Independent. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported warehouses on fire in the Darnytskyi district. Around Dnipro, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha says up to 350,000 people lost power after strikes on the grid. Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has fired more than 100 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and its region since 14 October.

These attacks do not come out of nowhere. On 26 October, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine presented its report to the General Assembly. According to UN News, it describes the repeated strikes on the energy grid as crimes against humanity, under the heading of "other inhumane acts", and considers that Russian commanders knew these facilities were indispensable to civilians in winter. A Kyiv resident interviewed by the investigators sums up what this means in daily life:

"It was like torture to be afraid of dying of cold" — a Kyiv resident, cited by the UN Commission of Inquiry

The positions at stake

Emmanuel Macron reacted on X. According to BFMTV, he denounced a Russia that keeps "betting on escalation" by targeting civilians, called Moscow's rejection of ceasefire proposals "intolerable", and urged redoubled efforts for a "just and lasting peace". He also said Ukraine needs far more than the localised ceasefire in Oleshky.

Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, pointed to a Western contradiction. He asked, according to BFMTV, how many strikes Russia had carried out since the easing of certain sanctions targeting oligarchs and the Russian energy sector. The criticism is aimed first at Washington, which concluded an arrangement with Moscow in October making it easier for Russian diesel to reach world markets. But it also touches Europe: in September, the Union removed two oligarchs from its sanctions list at the request of France and Luxembourg, a concession that made it possible to save the renewal of the whole regime at the last minute, according to Boursorama. Paris had invoked "national security" grounds in the case of Alisher Usmanov, Le Club des juristes reports.

The opposite argument must also be heard. Supporters of the American approach argue that only concrete gestures will bring Moscow to negotiate, and the Oleshky truce gives them an example. According to AFP, as carried by Noovo, it came into force on 27 October to allow aid and the evacuation of some 2,000 residents deprived of food, water and medicine. The Russian and Ukrainian human rights mediators confirmed that it was being respected.

Analysis: consistency as a weapon

The Oleshky truce is good news for those who live there, and no one should dismiss it. But it does not make a policy. A pause of a few days over a few kilometres carries little weight against a campaign that UN investigators describe as methodical, directed at what allows a population to keep warm, receive care and move around. Striking a station platform where a passenger train is waiting follows the same logic.

For France, the question is one of consistency. The president is right to call for a "just and lasting" peace. Yet a diplomacy faithful to the Gaullist tradition does not settle for words: it relies on law and on constancy. Every exception granted, whether American on diesel or European on oligarchs, weakens the credibility of the whole. One can understand that a state has reasons it does not make public. One can also expect it to account for them before Parliament.

Finally, there is a social dimension, in the simplest sense. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families are entering winter with no guarantee of electricity. European solidarity is measured there: in transformers, in generators, in air defence for cities, and in a dignified welcome for those who flee.

Conclusion: make the law bite, not just speak

The UN report provides a solid legal basis. France could propose to its European partners that three consequences be drawn from it: support the documentation work with a view to future prosecutions, make any further lifting of sanctions conditional on a transparent debate, and finance, as a priority, the protection of Ukraine's energy grid before winter. The question remains open: does Europe want to be an actor for peace, or merely a commentator on truces negotiated by others?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.