Ukraine, Russia agree to peace talks as they trade huge blows
dpa
Moscow/Kiev
Ukraine has agreed to a Russian proposal for a further round of direct peace talks starting on Monday, even as both countries carried out massive strikes on each other.
'On Monday, our delegation will be led by [Defence Minister] Rustem Umerov,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on the platform X on Sunday, calling for talks at a high level to ensure lasting peace.
Like the first round a fortnight ago, the meeting is to take place in Istanbul. Zelensky, laying out Ukraine's position at the talks, called for a complete and unconditional ceasefire, the release of prisoners and the return of abducted children.
The second round of talks, announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday, will come a day after both sides appeared to have carried out particularly stinging attacks.
Russia suffered an apparent coordinated attempt to disrupt railway lines as well as drone attacks on four military airfields, while Ukraine said Russia had hit a military training unit, killing 12, and damaged critical infrastructure in the city of Zaporizhzhya.
At least seven people were killed and some 70 injured when two bridges collapsed in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine, local officials said on Sunday.
While Ukraine has so far not commented on the reports, the military intelligence service in Kiev said a Russian freight train carrying military supplies from the Ukrainian mainland to Crimea was blown up early on Saturday in a Russian-occupied part of the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhya.
Russian investigators have said the overnight collapse of the two bridges near the border with Ukraine was caused by 'acts of terrorism,' according to the Interfax news agency.
In Bryansk, Governor Alexander Bogomaz confirmed reports of an explosion on a bridge, about 80 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. The train en route from Klimovo to Moscow had been carrying 388 people, Bogomaz said on state television.
A section of the bridge collapsed and then fell onto a train passing underneath, state-run Russian news agency TASS reported. The conductor of the train was among those killed, TASS added.
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