A Russian drone attack on a minibus carrying civilians killed nine people yesterday, authorities said, a day after Moscow and Kyiv agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap at talks in Istanbul, Turkey.
At the end of a tense week, Ukraine and Russia held their first direct talks in more than three years, but failed to agree to a truce.
Despite the threat of new sanctions on Russia from Kyiv’s allies, there has been no let-up in fighting.
Photo: Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
“Unfortunately, as a result of a cynical attack by the Russians on a bus with civilians, there are dead,” the military administration in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region said in a Telegram post.
“Unfortunately, the death toll has risen to nine,” it added later, alongside a photo of a mangled blue minibus that had apparently been torn apart by the blast.
Four people were wounded in the attack, the administration said.
The bus, which was attacked near the city of Bilopillya while traveling toward Sumy, was “targeted by the Russians,” the military administration said.
Ukraine’s Sumy border region has come under increasingly deadly bombardments by Moscow since March when Ukrainian forces were pushed out of Russia’s neighboring Kursk region, which they had partially controlled since summer last year.
The latest attack came after three people were killed in Russian strikes on Friday on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and southeastern Kherson regions.
The first direct talks since the spring of 2022 — shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion that February — between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul resulted in a concrete agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each.
However, there were few signs of any progress toward halting the fighting that has dragged on for more than three years, destroyed large swathes of Ukraine and displaced millions of people.
The two sides said they would “present their vision of a possible future ceasefire,” said Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky.
Ukraine’s top negotiator, Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov, said the “next step” would be a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia said it took note of the request.
Putin had declined to travel to Turkey for the meeting, with Zelenskiy accusing him of being “afraid” and Russia of not taking the talks “seriously.”
Zelenskiy attended a European summit in Albania alongside the leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland, among others, where he urged a “strong reaction” from the world if the Istanbul talks failed, including new sanctions.
French President Emmanuel Macron said European nations were coordinating with the US on additional sanctions against Russia should Moscow continue to refuse an “unconditional ceasefire.”
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