Ukraine-Russia war latest: Nine killed in Russian strike on bus hours after Moscow and Kyiv peace talks – UK Times

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

The negotiations, held in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace and mediated by a Turkish team, took place after a turbulent two days cast doubt over whether the meeting would take place at all.

The talks lasted under two hours and there was no immediate announcement on whether or when the sides might meet again, although Russia expressed satisfaction with the meeting and said it was ready to continue contacts.

Ukraine said its next goal is for Vladimir Putin to meet directly with Volodymyr Zelensky; Russia said it had “taken note” of the request.

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.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed it had targeted a Ukrainian military equipment staging area in the Sumy region, according to state news agency Tass.

It came shortly after Ukrainian officials said nine people were killed after a drone strike hit a bus, killing nine passengers.

The attack happened after a meeting of Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey on Friday failed to broker a temporary ceasefire. It was the first direct dialogue between the two sides since the early months of the war that Russia launched in February 2022.

The pictures have emerged of the passenger bus that was hit by a drone strike in Ukraine’s Sumy, killing nine people.

The blue passenger bus was badly damaged, with its roof partially blown off and the right side completely destroyed.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov has said Kyiv believes the next step after Friday’s talks about the war with a Russian delegation should be a meeting of the nation’s two leaders.

Umerov told reporters that the first priority in the talks on Friday in Istanbul was to secure the release of prisoners of war, and the second, to secure a ceasefire, adding that the next step should be leader-level talks.

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Serhiy Kyslytsia, said he hoped the nations’ two leaders would meet “sooner rather than later”.