Ukraine-Russia war latest: Mother, father and daughter among nine killed in Russian bus strike, says Zelensky

Following the drone strike Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X that there are currently seven wounded people in hospital.

He said: “The victims have suffered burns, fractures, and blast injuries.

“All of them are receiving the necessary medical assistance. Tragically, nine people were killed. All the details are being verified.

“According to preliminary reports, the Russians killed a family: father, mother, and daughter died in the attack.”

“My condolences to all the families and loved ones,” he added.

He claimed: “The Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting. This was a deliberate killing of civilians.”

Nine people have been killed in a Russian drone attack on a civilian minibus in north-eastern Ukraine

Regional military leaders said seven other people were injured in the attack on Saturday morning in Bilopillia, Sumy, as the minibus travelled to the regional capital close to Russia’s border.

Medics, emergency services, and police rushed to the scene of the strike in Bilopillia town in Ukraine’s Sumy region on Saturday morning, according to the head of the regional military administration.

Images show the bus was badly damaged.

Here is what Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia’s peace delegation, said after Istanbul talks.

In general, we are satisfied with the result and are ready to continue contacts. In the coming days, there will be a massive thousand-for-thousand prisoner exchange.

The Ukrainian side requested direct talks between the leaders of the states. We have taken note of this request.

We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail. After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations.

US senator have renewed calls for Congress to pass sanctions on Russia after Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks showed little progress, but no votes were scheduled on bills introduced six weeks ago aimed at pressuring Moscow to negotiate seriously.

Kyiv and Moscow’s first direct talks in more than three years on Friday ended in well under two hours, with Russia presenting conditions that a Ukrainian source described as “non-starters.”

Russian President Vladimir “Putin will continue stonewalling and slow-walking ceasefire efforts till his economy is hit hard — isolating it on a financial island,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said in a statement urging a vote on sanctions legislation.

Mr Blumenthal and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill on 1 April that is intended to make it more difficult for Russia to fund its war by adding provisions like a 500 per cent tariff on imports to the US from countries that buy Russian energy.

The Senate bill now has at least 73 co-sponsors in the 100-member chamber, although leaders have not indicated when it might be brought up for a vote. A similar measure introduced the same day in the House of Representatives has 28 co-sponsors, also from both parties.

Mr Graham, who was in Turkey for a Nato foreign ministers meeting this week, called for the bill’s passage, criticizing Mr Putin’s decision not to attend the talks with Ukraine.

“When it comes to Russia’s games, enough is enough,” Mr Graham said in a statement.

British foreign minister Lammy accused Moscow of obfuscating after talks between Ukraine and Russia on a possible ceasefire ended in less than two hours.

“Yet again we are seeing obfuscation on the Russian side and unwillingness to get serious about the enduring peace that is now required in Ukraine,” Mr Lammy said. “Once again Russia is not serious.”

“At what point do we say to Putin enough is enough?” he said

It came as Donald Trump said “nothing could happen” until he had met directly with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

At the meeting convened by Turkey, the negotiating teams sat opposite one another at a U-shaped table, with the Russians dressed in suits while half of the Ukrainians wore military fatigues.

The atmosphere was calm, a Turkish official said. No concrete timetable or location was agreed for the next talks, the official said, with both sides needing to debrief their leaders first.

The Ukrainians spoke in their own language through an interpreter, a Ukrainian source said, although Russian is widely spoken in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian and a European source said Russia rejected a Ukrainian request for US representatives to be in the room.

Two sources familiar with the talks said Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia’s peace delegation said Russia was ready to keep fighting for as long as necessary, drawing a parallel with the wars of Tsar Peter the Great against Sweden, which lasted 21 years in the early 1700s.

“We do not want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three as long as you want,” one of the sources quoted him as saying.

Here is the recap of events since Friday if you are just joining us.

• Russia and Ukraine held their first direct peace talks since 2022 in Istanbul, at the Dolmabahce Palace. The meeting lasted just under two hours; neither Vladimir Putin nor Volodymyr Zelensky attended

• No major breakthrough was achieved, with expectations already low ahead of the talks. The only tangible outcome was an agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each – the largest swap of the war

• Ukraine pushed for a 30-day ceasefire, but Moscow rejected the proposal and stuck to its maximalist demands

• Ukraine said Russia signalled willingness to continue talks and acknowledged Ukraine’s request for a Zelensky and Putin meeting

• Zelenskyy reiterated his call for an immediate, full, and honest ceasefire to stop the bloodshed. He also urged further sanctions on Moscow if it refuses to agree to a ceasefire

• Hours after the talks in Turkey, a Russian drone strike killed nine people in Ukraine’s Sumy after a bus came under attack. Russia said it was targeting targeted a Ukrainian military equipment staging area in the Sumy region

Ukraine’s National Police called the bus strike in Sumy a “cynical war crime” after nine people were killed in a drone strike on a bus.

“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.

Ihor Tkachenko, head of Sumy’s military administration, said on Telegram that a rescue operation was under way.

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.

Ukraine’s police posted photos of a dark blue passenger van nearly destroyed, with the roof torn off and the windows blown out.