KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to speak by phone Monday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, followed by Ukraine's president and NATO allies, about ending what he called a “bloodbath” in Ukraine.
“HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END,” Trump wrote Saturday in a post on his social networking site, Truth Social.
Trump's remarks came less than a day after the first direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in years failed to yield a ceasefire. Putin had spurned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he himself proposed negotiations in Istanbul “without preconditions” as an alternative to the “full and unconditional” ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including the U.S.
Earlier Saturday, a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from a front-line area in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, killing nine people, Ukrainian officials said. The strike came hours after the Russian and Ukrainian delegations left Istanbul after agreeing to a large exchange of prisoners of war.
A town in mourning
Seven people were also injured in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Russia's border, three of them seriously, according to local Gov. Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police. The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
Zelenskyy described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians,” adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that "Russians could scarcely not realize what kind of vehicle they were hitting.”
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. A mourning was declared in the town through Monday.
Zelenskyy lamented the missed opportunity from Friday's peace talks, 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,” Zelenskyy added.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “appalled” by the attack. “If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its forces hit a military staging area in the Sumy region on Saturday morning, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) southeast of Bilopillia, without mentioning any other attacks there.
According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, Ukrainian forces have been inching forward into Russian territory in the Kursk region, just north of Bilopillia.
Russia said last month that its forces had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, nearly nine months after Kyiv's lightning incursion captured more than 100 settlements there and promised to hand Ukraine a bargaining chip in possible negotiations. Ukrainian officials claimed fighting in Kursk was still ongoing.
Russian shelling, drones and airstrikes killed at least five other civilians on Friday and overnight across Ukraine's Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, according to local officials there. Russian forces overnight also launched 62 drones, Ukraine's air force reported. It said 36 of the drones were shot down and six more veered off course.
Impact on peace efforts
The talks in Istanbul on Friday ended after less than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchange 1,000 POWs each, according to the heads of both delegations, in what would be their biggest such swap. Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Ukrainian TV Saturday the exchange could happen as early as next week.
But the Kremlin has pushed back against a proposal by Ukraine and its Western allies for a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement.
Zelenskyy said he had discussed the outcome of the talks with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland. In a post on X from a European leadership meeting in Albania on Friday, he urged “tough sanctions” against Moscow if it rejects “a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings.”
Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, said both sides also agreed to provide each other with detailed ceasefire proposals, with Ukraine requesting the heads of state meeting, which Russia took under consideration.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday held open the possibility of Putin holding talks with Zelenskyy, providing the agreed prisoner swap goes ahead and if Russian and Ukrainian delegations reached unspecified further “agreements.”
Peskov also told reporters that Moscow will present Ukraine with a list of conditions for a ceasefire but gave no timeframe, or say what needed to happen before Zelenskyy and Putin can meet.
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Kozlowska reported from London. Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Istanbul and Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
