Moscow has launched a major drone attack on Ukraine, with the latest strikes hitting an area near Kiev and the Sumy region, even as US President Donald Trump said he would speak to Russian and Ukrainian leaders in separate calls in the hope of reaching a ceasefire.
The Ukrainian military said Russia fired 273 drones at Ukrainian targets during the night of May 18, one of the largest attacks since the beginning of the invasion in 2022. The military claimed to have intercepted or shot down at least 88 drones and that about 130 failed to hit their targets.
A 28-year-old woman has been killed and a four-year-old child is among those injured in a drone strike in a district outside the capital Kiev, the regional governor said.
A day earlier, a Russian drone strike hit a minibus carrying civilians in the Sumy region near the Russian border, killing nine people and wounding several others, Ukrainian authorities said.
The attacks followed direct peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul on May 16 - the first in nearly three years - which failed to produce any progress, with Ukraine accusing Russia of making "unacceptable" demands.
Russia has rejected calls from Ukraine, European countries and the United States for a 30-day ceasefire in the war, now in its fourth year.
In a post on his Twitter account on May 17, Trump said he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on May 19, as well as with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
"Topics of discussion will be... stopping the 'bloodbath' that is killing, on average, over 5.000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers per week, and trade," Trump wrote.
"I hope it will be a productive day, that a ceasefire will come, and that this very violent war, a war that should never have happened, will end," Trump wrote.
Trump previously said that "nothing will be accomplished until Putin and I meet."
"We have to meet," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. He said he was optimistic about engaging with Putin but was prepared to put pressure on Russia if necessary.
"I think we will reach an agreement with Putin... [I] will use my influence on Putin if I have to," he said.
There was no immediate confirmation of the planned call from Kiev or Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 16 that a Trump-Putin meeting to discuss bilateral relations, Ukraine and other issues is "certainly necessary," but that it will take time to prepare.
Civilian deaths in Ukraine
Mykola Kalashny, head of the Kyiv regional administration, said the May 18 attack in the Obukhiv district hit a private house and a nearby apartment building was damaged.
As of the early morning of May 18, Kalashni said emergency services were on the scene and that full details were not yet available.
The military said the capital, the surrounding region and much of eastern Ukraine remained on alert for airstrikes in the early hours of the morning.
On May 17, the National Police of Ukraine accused Russian forces of deliberately targeting a minibus, which was being used as an intercity bus, and which was hit near the town of Bylopil, not far from the Russian border.
"This day will become Black Saturday in the history of our city," said the head of the Bilopil administration, Yuri Zarko. Periods of mourning have been declared in Bilopil and the Sumy region, which is often the target of Russian attacks.
The surviving passenger, Andrij, lies in a hospital bed, with bandages on his head and shoulder and bloody cuts on his face.
"When I raised my head [after the explosion], the door was completely gone. I saw a man under [the exit] in a pool of blood," he told independent regional outlet Kordon.Media.
"I started driving and there was an explosion," driver Viktor Vovk told Kordon.Media.
"The air bags deployed; they hit me in the face. I got off the bus. There was a person lying on the ground right next to the bus in a terrible state. Another person was crying inside for help. I went inside and got [the person] out because they were still alive. That's all I could do until the police and ambulance arrived."
"Total horror, I can't find the words," he said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which claims it is not targeting civilians despite ample evidence to the contrary.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on May 17. Rubio "emphasized President Trump's call for an immediate ceasefire," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
Rubio told reporters in Rome that the Vatican could be a venue for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. "I wouldn't call it a mediator, but it's certainly a place that I think both sides would be comfortable coming to," he said before meeting with a senior Vatican official.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who met in Rome with Italian leader Giorgio Meloni, said that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia had fallen short of his expectations, despite the "maximum constructive approach" of the Ukrainian negotiating team.
Agreed prisoner exchange
At talks in Istanbul, negotiators agreed to exchange 1.000 prisoners from each side in the near future, but there was no sign that the wide differences between Russia and Ukraine on issues such as territory and a ceasefire had narrowed. European leaders joined Zelensky in condemning Moscow.
Nearly 40 months since the invasion began, Russia now holds about a fifth of Ukraine's territory, but is far from Putin's goal of subjugating the country.
The only previous direct peace talks broke down in the spring of 2022, as the sides bickered over the main points of contention and amid revelations of crimes committed by Russian forces in Bucha.
In those negotiations, Russia sought a deal that, according to analysts, would mean Kiev's capitulation, leaving Ukraine as a permanently neutral country with a small and powerless army, limited sovereignty, and little or no access to Western security support.
Reports from the May 16 talks suggest that Russia's terms have changed little in three years. But Russia has expanded its territorial claims, seeking control of four land regions it claims without basis.
According to a Ukrainian official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the Russian delegation said there could be no ceasefire until Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, which are now partially under Russian occupation.
Russia also wants international recognition that those four regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized in 2014, belong to Russia.
Other demands include permanent neutrality for Ukraine, with no weapons of mass destruction and no Western troops stationed on its territory, as well as a waiver of claims for compensation for the enormous damage inflicted on Ukraine by the Russian invasion.
Some experts say a ceasefire on the current front line would be a blow to Putin's reputation at home, but the Kremlin may still be forced to accept it if the West increases economic pressure on Russia, including significantly expanding sanctions on its oil-transporting fleet.
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