Ukraine war: Towns evacuated after Moscow seizes territory in Sumy region

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said that there is no clarity on Russia’s position ahead of the upcoming peace talks in Turkey.

Mr Zelensky, in his evening video address, said: “We don’t have it, Turkey doesn’t have it, the United States doesn’t have it, and neither do our other partners”.

“At this point, it looks far from serious.”

The Ukrainian president previously accused Russia of “doing everything it can” to ensure that a next potential meeting between the two sides brings no results.

Ukraine has not yet confirmed whether it will attend proposed talks in Istanbul on Monday.

At least seven people were killed and 30 hospitalised after “illegal interference” caused a bridge to collapse and a train to derail in Russia’s Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, Russian authorities said this morning.

The train’s locomotive and several cars derailed “due to the collapse of a span structure of the road bridge as a result of an illegal interference in the operation of transport,” Russian Railways said on Telegram.

Two children were among those hospitalised, one of them in a serious condition, according to Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk region.

Among those killed was the locomotive driver, Russia’s state news agencies reported, citing medics.Russia’s ministry of emergency situations said its main efforts were aimed at finding and rescuing victims, and that some 180 personnel were involved in the operation.

Russia’s Baza Telegram channel, which often publishes information from sources in the security services and law enforcement, reported without providing evidence that the bridge was blown up.

Since the start of the war that Russia launched more than three years ago, there have been continued cross-border shelling, drone strikes, and covert raids from Ukraine into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine.

The train was going from the town of Klimovo to Moscow, Russian Railways said. It collided with the collapsed bridge in the area of a federal highway in the Vygonichskyi district of the Bryansk region.

The district lies some 100km from the border with Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air defence units were trying to repel a Russian air attack on the capital Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said this morning.

A bridge has collapsed in the Russian Bryansk region that borders Ukraine causing a traffic accident that involved a passenger train, the regional governor said early on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, there are injuries,” Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of Bryansk, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He added that the collapse took place in the Vygonichskyi district in the area of a federal highway.

Russia’s Baza and SHOT Telegram channels, which often publish information from sources in the security services and law enforcement, reported that the passenger train crashed into the collapsed bridge.

Baza reported, without providing evidence, that according to preliminary information, the bridge was blown up.

Reuters could not independently verify the Baza and SHOT reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Since the start of the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion on Ukraine more than three years ago, there have been continued cross-border shelling, drone strikes, and covert raids from Ukraine into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine.

Russia’s emergency ministry said on Telegram that it sent an additional deployment to the fire and rescue units already working at the site

A dozen Russian soldiers were awarded about $195,000 each for shooting down an F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Ukraine’s Air Force in late August last year confirmed that a pilot had been killed during Russia’s mass attack, which shot down one of the US-delivered F-16 jets.

“Forces has delivered on its earlier promise to transfer 15 million rubles to members of the Russian Armed Forces for downing the first F-16 in the special military operation zone,” the company said.