Drone strikes by both Moscow and Kyiv killed two in Russia and three in Ukraine, hours after a brief third round of ceasefire talks concluded in Istanbul.
Three people were found dead in the rubble of a house after a strike in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region and several people were wounded in the cities of Cherkasy and Zaporizhzhia.
In the Black Sea port city of Odesa the famous Pryvoz market, as well as a central boulevard which is a Unesco world heritage site, were also hit.
Several fires broke out across the city following an overnight attack, authorities said. Meanwhile, Russian authorities said two people were killed and 11 injured in an overnight Ukrainian drone strike on Sochi, in Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Another Russian attack on the Ukrainian city Kharkiv on Thursday morning also left 33 injured.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations met on Wednesday evening in Istanbul in the third round of ceasefire talks.
Neither side appeared to harbour much hope for progress before start of the talks, which according to the head of the Ukrainian delegation lasted barely an hour.
The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said both countries agreed to swap 1,200 prisoners of war and that Russia had offered to transfer 3,000 bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers back to Kyiv.
But no tangible steps were taken to end the conflict, now well into its fourth year, and both sides accused the other of rejecting their ideas.
Credit: bbc.com
