AT least 12 people have been killed in a Russian drone attack on a bus carrying miners in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, the country’s energy minister said.
“Today, the enemy carried out a cynical and targeted attack on energy sector workers in the Dnipro region,” Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal posted on Telegram on Sunday.
“As a result of the terrorist attack, 12 mine workers were killed and seven more were injured.”
Police said the attack took place in the city of Ternivka. Footage posted by the State Emergencies Service showed a charred bus with shattered windows that had veered off the road.
Energy firm DTEK said in a statement that the killed and wounded were its employees returning from a shift.
Earlier on Sunday, regional officials said at least nine people had been wounded in Russian strikes on a maternity hospital and a residential building in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
The attacks come days after United States President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to temporarily halt the targeting of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv and other cities, amid freezing temperatures that have brought widespread hardship to Ukrainians.
The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that it agreed to suspend attacks on Kyiv until Sunday, but did not reveal any further details.
Russia and Ukraine held trilateral talks with the US in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, last month and are expected to meet for a second round this month, amid ongoing US pressure to end their nearly four-year war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that the second round of talks would take place in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday.
While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle with Washington’s demands for a compromise, Moscow and Kyiv differ deeply over what an agreement should look like.
A central issue is whether Russia should keep or withdraw from areas of Ukraine its forces have occupied, especially Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland called the Donbas, and whether it should get land there that it has not yet captured.
