Russian attack on bus in Sumy region kills nine, Ukraine says, hours after peace talks

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1A Russian drone attack on a bus in northeastern Ukraine killed at least nine people and injured seven others, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, just hours after the two countries met for the first direct peace talks in three years.

2While the two sides discussed a possible meeting between the two countries’ leaders, a ceasefire and agreed a prisoner swap, there was no major breakthrough and since then Russia’s aerial assault continued.

3The drone attack took place Saturday morning in the city of Bilopillia in the Sumy region, local authorities said, with Oleh Hrihorov - head of Sumy’s military administration - saying that seven people were injured, three of whom were in critical condition.

4“This is not just another shelling – it is a cynical war crime,” Ukraine’s National Police also said on Telegram. 5Police and local authorities said Russia had struck a civilian target.

6Related article A whiplash week of diplomacy leaves Ukraine much where it started

9Moscow has not yet responded to Ukraine’s claims it struck a civilian bus.

10However, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported around the same time, citing a statement from the defense ministry, that Russian forces did strike a Ukrainian equipment staging site in the Sumy region with drones.

11Russia and Ukraine have both accused each other of targeting civilians, which each denies.

12An image shared by Ukraine’s national police showed a heavily damaged van bearing massive holes in the right and top side of the passenger seats. 13Its windows, as well as the windshield, were shattered.

14Overall in Ukraine, Russian attacks killed at least 13 people and injured over 38 in the past 24 hours, which includes the attack in Sumy, Ukrainian authorities say. 15Two were killed in Donetsk region, and one person was killed in both Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

16Friday’s talks marked the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since the early weeks of the war.

17But the meeting – which took place in Istanbul chaired by Turkey – was not attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had first proposed the talks but instead sent a junior delegation. 18Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also stayed away, having said he would not meet any other Russian official but Putin.

19During the talks, Russia demanded that Ukraine must cede land still under Kyiv’s control, a source familiar with Friday’s negotiations told CNN, a position that Ukraine has long dismissed. 20The leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Poland called Russian demands in the talks “unacceptable.”

21On Saturday, the Kremlin said that a meeting between Zelensky and Putin could happen, but only if certain conditions are met.

22“Such a meeting is possible as a result of the work of the delegations of both sides in reaching certain agreements,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

23Peskov also spoke about preparing a list of “conditions” for a ceasefire agreement, that would then be exchanged with the Ukrainian side. 24Kyiv and its allies have repeatedly called for an unconditional truce and accuse Russia of deliberately holding up peace efforts.

from CNN