Trump: Russia and Ukraine ceasefire talks begin “quickly”
President Donald Trump said peace talks between Russia and Ukraine would begin “quickly” after a two-hour call with Vladimir Putin.
At least seven people were killed and 69 were injured when two bridges were blown up in separate regions of Ukraine and adjacent Russia ahead of planned peace talks aimed at ending a three-year-old war in Ukraine, Russian officials said on Sunday.
A highway bridge on the Briansk region’s railway exploded at 10:50pm on the evening of May 31, just as a passenger train carrying 388 passengers in Moscow, according to Russian investigators.
Just four hours later, a railway bridge on the highway was blown up in nearby Kursk area and bombarded the roads with some freight trains, investigators said.
The Russian commission on Investigation of serious crimes has explicitly said that both bridges had exploded, linking the incidents together.
In the Briance area, social media photos and videos showed passengers trying to climb from a carriage that had been destroyed in the darkness. Part of the passenger train was crushed under a collapsed road bridge, and a destroyed carriage was seen beside the boundary line.
“The bridge was blown up while the Klimobo Moscow train was carrying 388 passengers,” regional governor Alexander Bogomaz told Russian television.
The Russian region bordering Ukraine has been the subject of frequent Ukraine attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
There were no immediate comments from Ukraine that took place just a day before the US hoped that Russia and Ukraine would sit down for an in-person meeting in Istanbul and to sit to discuss the end of the war that, according to Washington, killed and wounded at least 12 million people.
Ukrainian military intelligence intelligence agency said on June 1 that an explosion carrying Russian military trains and fuel trucks near the Yakimibuka settlement had derailed in a Russian-controlled portion of Ukraine’s Zaporidia region.
The agency did not claim responsibility or accused anyone of the explosion, but Ukraine had previously claimed a string of attacks on Russia.
Disturbance?
Russian politicians lined up to blame Ukraine, saying it was clearly a sabotage aimed at derailing the peace negotiations that the US had requested.
“This is definitely a special service job in Ukraine,” Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the House of Representatives’ defense committee of the Russian parliament, told The Shot Telegram Channel.
“This is all intended to strengthen the position of the Russian Federation and to shout out an attack before negotiations.
President Vladimir Putin exploded all night long on the bridge explosion by the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) and the Ministry of Emergency Rescue, the Kremlin said. Putin also spoke to Briance’s governor, Alexander Bogomaz.
US President Donald Trump demanded that the flanks create peace and he threatened to leave if they didn’t – could push Ukraine’s responsibility to support the shoulders of European powers.
However, as politicians talk about peace negotiations, the war is escalating, with a flock of drones launched by both Russian forces, both Russian and Ukrainian and Russian forces advancing along the eastern front.
Ukraine has not promised to attend consultations in Turkey and said it would need to first look at Russia’s proposal, but the US senator warned that Moscow is “severe” with new US sanctions.
(Reports by Lydia Kelly of Melbourne and Guy Foulconbridge of Moscow, and Kiev reporters, edited by Daniel Wallis, Third Said and William Mallard)
