KYIV (AFP) — A Russian drone attack on a minibus carrying civilians killed nine people on Saturday, authorities said, a day after Moscow and Kyiv agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap at talks in Turkey.

At the end of a tense week, Ukraine and Russia held their first direct talks in more than three years but failed to agree to a truce.

And despite the threat of new sanctions on Russia from Kyiv’s allies, there has been no let-up in fighting.

“Unfortunately, as a result of a cynical attack by the Russians on a bus with civilians, there are dead,” the military administration in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region said in a Telegram post.

“Unfortunately, the death toll has risen to nine,” it added later, alongside a photo of a mangled blue minibus that had apparently been torn apart by the blast.

Four people were wounded in the attack, the administration said.

In the earlier post, the authorities had said that eight people were killed.

The bus, which was attacked near the city of Bilopillya while traveling towards Sumy, was “targeted by the Russians,” the military administration said.

Ukraine’s Sumy border region has come under increasingly deadly bombardments by Moscow since March when Ukrainian forces were pushed out of Russia’s neighboring Kursk region, which they had partially controlled since the summer of 2024.

This latest attack came after three people were killed in Russian strikes on Friday on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and southeastern Kherson regions.

During talks in Istanbul, the two sides said they would “present their vision of a possible future ceasefire,” according to Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky.

Ukraine’s top negotiator, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, said the “next step” would be a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Russia said it took note of the request.