17-5-2025
Russia Saturday launched drone attacks on Ukraine killing several people after the ceasefire talks failed to fly in Istanbul, Turkey on Friday.
A bus evacuating people from a frontline in Sumy northeastern Ukraine was hit by a drone killing nine people and injuring several others.
Seven people were also injured in Bilopillia, a town around 12km from Russia’s border, three of them seriously, according to local governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police.
Mr Zelenskyy described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians”. adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that “Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting”.
On Friday Russian negotiators demanded that Ukraine pull its troops from all Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, a demand Ukraine flatly rejected.
The talks in Istanbul, the first direct contacts between the two sides in three years, ended with agreement for a prisoner exchange but failed to agree to a ceasefire.
At a briefing with reporters on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about the terms that, according to the Ukrainian official, Moscow put forward, but he declined to comment, saying the discussions need to take place behind closed doors.