Russia accused of ‘hollow talks’ as strikes hit Sumy

Russia has launched a missile strike targeting north-eastern Ukraine as US and Russian officials met to push for a pause in the war.

After Monday’s attack, which injured dozens in the city of Sumy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia must end strikes instead of “making hollow statements about peace”.

The latest round of talks between the US and Russia concluded on Monday in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Top of the agenda was reportedly the revival of a 2022 grain deal allowing Kyiv to export across the Black Sea.

In return, Moscow is said to be seeking relief from Western sanctions, enabling it to export fertilisers.

The Russia-US talks went on for 12 hours. Russian news agencies said a joint statement would be released on Tuesday.

Late on Monday a White House source told Reuters news agency the talks in Riyadh are going “extremely well” and it expected “to have a positive announcement in the near future”.

Ukrainian and US delegations will meet on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia for talks to follow Russia-US negotiations, Ukraine’s national broadcaster Suspilne reported.

Optimistic US ambitions for ending this war have had a head-on collision with reality. Finding common ground for even a partial ceasefire is proving a highly complex task.

This is not something that can be solved quickly. So in the current talks, the aim has been to come up with a kind of “ceasefire light”, focusing on the Black Sea.

Russia stopped giving safe passage to cargo ships going to and from Ukraine in mid-2023, when it pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal complaining that sanctions were still in place.

The Ukrainian delegation is in the same building – but there are no plans for the warring sides to meet. The Ukrainians remained there after meeting American counterparts on Sunday evening.

Kyiv described talks as “productive and focused”, while US President Donald Trump’s special envoy said separate discussions with Ukrainian and Russian teams would bring about “some real progress” to ending the war.

Both Russia and Ukraine have continued fighting despite the ongoing talks looking to bring a halt to hostilities across the vast front line.

Ukrainian officials say 65 people, including 14 children, were injured in Monday’s attack on Sumy.

The city has long been the subject of Russian strikes – it lies just over the border from the Kursk region of Russia occupied by Ukraine last year. But Monday’s missile strike was exceptional.

The authorities said a school, hospital and apartment blocks were damaged. Scores were injured – including children.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the attack showed Russia was “once again showing that it wants to continue the terror”.

“The international community must increase the pressure on Russia to stop the aggression and ensure justice and save the lives of Ukrainians,” he wrote on X.

Sumy borders Russia’s Kursk region, parts of which have been occupied by Ukrainian troops to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in any negotiations, though they have been forced back in recent weeks.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of not abiding by last week’s deal for a 30-day ceasefire during which the warring parties would refrain from targeting infrastructure facilities.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine launched a drone attack against the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in Krasnodar, southern Russia, at 02:00 local time on Monday (23:00 GMT on Sunday), according to Russian state media.

The defence ministry said it had shot down overnight 227 Ukrainian drones in several Russian regions.

Meanwhile, a Russian air strike injured a 37-year-old man in Ukraine’s Kyiv region, according to local authorities.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

The current negotiations, mediated by the US, are part of Trump’s plan to secure a wider ceasefire in Ukraine.

His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he was hopeful that real progress would be made during the talks, in an interview with Fox News.

After Sunday evening’s meeting between Kyiv and Washington, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said the talks were working towards securing “a just and lasting peace” for Ukraine and Europe.

“The discussion was productive and focused – we addressed key points including energy”, he said in a post on X.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of Monday’s meeting there were “difficult negotiations ahead”.

“We are only at the beginning of this path,” he told Russian State TV.