A man walking near a residential building that was damaged by shelling in Donetsk in 2015 (Archive)

Around 30 people were killed on Thursday near the Kharkov region after a bus carrying them was attacked by Ukrainian forces on its way to the Russian border.

According to initial reports, citing the head of the representative office of the Lugansk People's Republic in Moscow, Rodion Miroshnik, emergency services were incapable of removing the bodies from the site of the incident, adding that the number of people departing the region in the direction of the Russian region of Belgorod or traveling through the Lugansk People's Republic."

TASS reported Miroshnik stating that "The bus was tracked using quadcopters and artillery shelled them". The Ukrainian forces targeted LPR territory with more than 60 American-made HIMARS missiles just over the last few days during which a referendum was issued to vote on both the LPR and the Donetsk People's Republic joining the Russian Federation. Zaporozhye and Kherson regions were also included in the referendum package.

In the latest update, the leaders of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions as well as the DPR and LPR have arrived in Moscow "to make a historic decision," announced Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Kherson administration on Thursday.

"A historic plane with the leaders of the liberated territories landed in Moscow. This, of course, is already history, but with a happy end. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Donetsk and Lugansk People' Republics have gathered in Moscow to make a historic decision. Very soon we will become new constituent members of the Russian Federation," Stremousov wrote.

After receiving the regions' requests to join the Russian Federation, the Russian President must inform the parliament and the government, which will carry out a legal procession. The outcome of the referendums proved major support for joining Russia: 99.23% in the Donetsk People's Republic, 98.42% in the Lugansk People's Republic, 87.05% in Kherson region and 93.11% in Zaporozhye region.