Latest news with #peace talks
CTV News
11 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
Russian rockets kill 3 in a Ukrainian city as Kyiv claims it damaged a key bridge
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defence press service, soldiers fire a canon towards Russian army positions near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, June 2, 2025. (Anatolii Lysianskyi/Ukraine's 127th Separate Brigade via AP) KYIV, Ukraine -- A Russian rocket attack targeted the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring 25, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the assault, saying it underscored that Moscow has no intentions of halting the three-year war. The attack came a day after direct peace talks in Istanbul made no progress on ending the three-year war. Local authorities said the barrage of rockets struck apartment buildings and a medical facility in the centre of Sumy. Meanwhile, Ukraine's secret services said they struck again inside Russia, two days after a spectacular Ukrainian drone attack on air bases deep inside the country. A vital bridge to Crimea The Ukrainian Security Service, known by its acronym SBU, claimed it damaged the foundations of the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and illegally annexed Crimea -- a key artery for Russian military supplies in the war. The SBU said it detonated 1,100 kilograms (2,400 pounds) of explosives on the seabed overnight,in an operation that took several months to set up. It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia's invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, the SBU said. 'The bridge is now effectively in an emergency condition,' the SBU claimed. It said no civilians were killed or injured in the operation. It was not possible to independently confirm the claims. Traffic across the Kerch Bridge was halted for three hours early Tuesday but reopened at 9 a.m., official Russian social media channels said. It closed for a second time at 3:20 p.m. Zelenskyy appeals for pressure on Moscow The Ukrainian president called the attack on Sumy a 'completely deliberate' strike on civilians. 'That's all you need to know about Russia's `desire' to end this war,' the Ukrainian president wrote on social media. Zelenskyy appealed for global pressure and 'decisive action from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who holds power.' Without it, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin 'will not agree even to a ceasefire.' The war has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line where the war of attrition grinds on despite U.S.-led efforts to broker a peace deal. A stunning Ukrainian drone attack Though Russia has a bigger army and more economic resources than Ukraine, the Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, Ukrainian officials said, touting it as a serious blow to the Kremlin's strategic arsenal and military prestige. The Russian Defence Ministry acknowledged that the Ukrainian attack set several planes ablaze at two air bases but said the military repelled attempted attacks on three other air bases. Both Zelenskyy and Putin have been eager to show U.S. President Donald Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting -- and avoid possible punitive measures from Washington. Ukraine has accepted a U.S.-proposed ceasefire, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Putin has made it clear that any peace settlement has to be on his terms. Delegations from the warring sides agreed Monday to swap dead and wounded troops, but their terms for ending the war remained far apart. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who now serves as deputy head of the country's Security Council chaired by Putin, indicated on Tuesday that there would be no let-up in Russia's invasion. 'The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else's delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of (Ukraine's government),' he said. In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he declared that 'retribution is inevitable.' A Putin-Zelenskyy-Trump meeting `unlikely' soon, Moscow says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to suggestions that a face-to-face meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelenskyy could break the deadlock, saying the possibility was 'unlikely in the near future.' Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has traveled to Washington for talks about defence, sanctions and postwar recovery, said Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential office. The delegation will meet with representatives from both major U.S. political parties, as well as with advisors to Trump, Yermak added. Ukrainians in Kyiv welcomed the strikes on Russian air bases but were gloomy about prospects for a peace agreement. 'Russia has invested too many resources in this war to just ... stop for nothing,' said serviceman Oleh Nikolenko, 43. His wife, Anastasia Nikolenko, a 38-year-old designer, said diplomacy can't stop the fighting. 'We need to show by force, by physical force, that we cannot be defeated,' she said. Russia recently expanded its attacks on Sumy and the Kharkiv region following Putin's promise to create a buffer zone along the border that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks hitting Russian soil. Sumy, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the border, had a prewar population of around 250,000. Russia's Defence Ministry claimed its troops had taken the Ukrainian village of Andriivka, close to the border in the Sumy region. Ukraine made no immediate comment on the claim, which could not be independently verified. Russia also fired rocket artillery at Chystovodivka village in the Kharkiv region, killing two people and injuring three others, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. By Illia Novikov
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
Ukraine and Russia agree to swap bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in war
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to swap the bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in action. The agreement emerged on Monday at the latest peace talks in Turkey, where the two sides met for just over an hour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian state media said. Advertisement The talks delivered no major breakthrough in wider peace efforts.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Russia and Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks
By Guy Faulconbridge and Max Hunder MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict, a Russian highway bridge blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia. After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war - but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting. Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war. At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia's Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No one has yet claimed responsibility. Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4,300 km (2,670 miles) away. The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases. A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said. RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES AIR BASE ATTACKS, SAYS FIRES PUT OUT Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official. Russia's Defence Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday. It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia - where "the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire". The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said. Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said. Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450 square km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months. U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not - potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers - which have far less cash and much smaller stocks of weapons than the United States. According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022. Trump has called Putin "crazy" and berated Zelenskiy in public in the Oval Office, but the U.S. president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia. In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters. According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine. The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory. Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 square km, about the same size as the U.S. state of Ohio.
CTV News
4 days ago
- General
- CTV News
2 killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine as prospects for talks remain uncertain
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 28, 2025.(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) KYIV, Ukraine — Russia's drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a nine-year-old girl, officials said, as uncertainty remains whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul. Russian troops launched some 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage, it said. A 9-year-old girl was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, Zaporizhzhia's Gov. Ivan Fedorov said. 'One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,' Fedorov wrote on Telegram. Another man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine's Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram. Moscow did not comment on either attack. Russia's Ministry of Defense said Saturday that it had gained control of the Ukrainian village of Novopil in the Donetsk region, and took the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements as Russian forces make steady gains in the area. The new additions bring the total number of settlements under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia's Kursk region, to 213. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some 50,000 Russian troops had amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory. Elsewhere, 14 people were injured including four children after Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings Saturday in the Russian town of Rylsk and the village of Artakovo in the western Kursk region, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said. Andrii Yermak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said Friday that Kyiv was ready to resume direct peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on Monday but that the Kremlin should first provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war. Zelenskyy said Friday that Russia was 'undermining diplomacy' by withholding the document. 'For some reason, the Russians are concealing this document. This is an absolutely bizarre position. There is no clarity about the format,' Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Moscow previously said it would share its memorandum during the talks. The Associated Press
Washington Post
4 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
2 killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine as prospects for talks remain uncertain
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia's drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a 9-year-old girl, officials said, as uncertainty remains whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul. Russian troops launched some 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage, it said.
