A Russian drone hit a bus, killing nine people and injuring four more in the region of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, in an attack that took place hours after Moscow and Kyiv held their first direct peace talks in years.
“This is not just another shelling — it is a cynical war crime,” Ukraine’s National Police said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s TASS state news agency reported, citing a statement from the defence ministry, that Russian forces struck a Ukrainian military equipment staging area in the Sumy region with drones.
The meeting of Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey on Friday failed to broker a temporary ceasefire. It was the first direct dialogue between the two sides since the early months of the war that Russia launched in February 2022.
Ihor Tkachenko, head of Sumy’s military administration, said on Telegram that a rescue operation was under way.
Ukraine’s police posted photos of a dark blue passenger van nearly destroyed, with the roof torn off and the windows blown out.
Reuters could not independently verify the Ukrainian and Russian reports. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War Two, delegates from the warring countries met for the first time since March 2022, the month after Russia invaded its neighbour.
The talks in an Istanbul palace lasted well under two hours.
Russia expressed satisfaction with the meeting and said it was ready to continue contacts. Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet.
But Kyiv, which wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Trump for a 30-day ceasefire, immediately began rallying its allies for tougher action.
As soon as the talks ended, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a phone call with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland, his spokesperson said.
Zelenskyy said robust sanctions should follow if Russia rejected a ceasefire.
Russia’s demands were “detached from reality and go far beyond anything that was previously discussed,” a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow had issued ultimatums for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of its own territory in order to obtain a ceasefire “and other non-starters and non-constructive conditions”.
(aw)
