A Russian drone strike in northeastern Ukraine kills 9 people, officials say

A Russian drone struck a passenger bus in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region on Saturday, killing nine people and injuring four others, Ukrainian officials said.

A Russian drone struck a passenger bus in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region on Saturday, killing nine people and injuring four others, Ukrainian officials said. The attack came just hours after Moscow and Kyiv held their first direct peace talks in years which failed to yield a ceasefire.

Ukraine’s national police released photos showing the aftermath of the strike in Sumy’s Bilopillia city, around 6 miles from the front line and border with Russia.

The Associated Press could not independently verify details of the incident. There was no comment from Moscow.

“This is another war crime by Russia — a deliberate strike on civilian transport that posed no threat,” the Sumy regional administration said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Turkey on Friday in an attempt to reach a temporary ceasefire, but the talks ended after less than two hours without a breakthrough. It was the first face-to-face dialogue between the two sides since the early weeks of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.