UK condemns Russian drone strike that left nine dead in Ukraine

The UK has condemned a Russian drone attack that killed nine people in Ukraine early on Saturday.

The attack, which struck a passenger bus in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region, came just hours after the first face-to-face talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “appalled” by the incident, adding in a post on X: “If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done.”

Regional authorities described the attack as “another war crime by Russia” and declared a period of mourning until Monday.

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Deliberate

Seven people were also injured in the drone attack in Bilopillia, a town around six miles from the border with Russia, three of them seriously, according to local governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians” and said in a post on Telegram messaging app that “Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting”.

He lamented the missed opportunity from the peace talks on Friday, saying that “Ukraine has long proposed this — a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives”.

“Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,” Mr Zelensky added.

On Friday, talks between Ukraine and Russia lasted less than two hours and saw both sides agree to the largest prisoner exchange since the start of the war in 2022.

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.

But the unconditional ceasefire demanded by Ukraine and its Western allies appears to still be a distant prospect, with Moscow continuing to resist calls for a truce and Russian President Vladimir Putin declining to travel to Turkey to meet his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

Following a meeting with Mr Zelensky and other European leaders in Albania on Friday, during which they also spoke to US President Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer said Russia’s position was “clearly unacceptable”.

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Mourning

In Bilopillia, a period of mourning was declared through until Monday, with local community chief Yurii Zarko calling the day “Black Saturday”.

The injured were taken to a hospital in Sumy, the regional capital.

The local media outlet Suspilne said the passengers on the bus were being evacuated from the town when the strike happened. Authorities are working to identify some of the victims, most of them elderly women.

Speaking to reporters in Tirana, Sir Keir said Ukraine’s allies “need to be really clear in putting the pressure on for a ceasefire” as leaders discussed ramping up sanctions on Russia.

Responding to Saturday’s attack, Mr Zelensky confirmed nine people had been killed, including a family of three, while seven others had been wounded and remained in hospital.

He added: “Pressure must be exerted on Russia to stop the killings. Without tougher sanctions, without stronger pressure, Russia will not seek real diplomacy.”

Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces hit a military staging area in the Sumy region on Saturday morning, some 31 miles south-east of Bilopillia, without mentioning any other attacks there.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said he would speak to Mr Putin on Monday at 10am Washington time (3pm UK time) about “stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade”.

He said he would then speak to Mr Zelensky and “various members of Nato”, adding: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should never have happened, will end.”