Russian rockets kill 4 in a Ukrainian city as Kyiv claims it damaged a key bridge

KYIV Ukraine AP A Russian rocket attack targeted the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday killing at least four people and wounding bureaucrats announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the assault saying it underscored that Moscow has no intentions of halting the -year-old war The attack came a day after direct peace talks in Istanbul made no progress on ending the fighting Local personnel disclosed the barrage of rockets struck apartment buildings and a anatomical facility in the center of Sumy Meanwhile the Ukrainian Prevention Function noted it attacked a bridge connecting Russia to illegally annexed Crimea two days after a spectacular Ukrainian drone assault on air bases deep inside Russia A vital bridge to Crimea The arrangement known by its acronym SBU claimed it damaged the foundations of the Kerch Bridge a key artery for Russian military supplies in the war The SBU stated it detonated kilograms pounds of explosives on the seabed overnight in an operation that took several months to set up It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia s invasion of its neighbor in February the SBU commented The bridge is now effectively in an emergency condition the SBU claimed The agency mentioned no civilians were killed or injured in the operation It was not manageable to independently confirm those suggests Traffic across the Kerch Bridge was halted for three hours early Tuesday but it reopened at a m official Russian social media channels disclosed It closed for a second time at p m and reopened again after two and a half hours Zelenskyy appeals for pressure on Moscow The Ukrainian president called the attack on Sumy a thoroughly deliberate strike on civilians That s all you need to know about Russia s desire to end this war the Ukrainian president wrote on social media Zelenskyy appealed for global pressure and decisive action from the United States Europe and everyone in the world who holds power Without it he mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin will not agree even to a ceasefire The war has killed more than Ukrainian civilians according to the United Nations as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly -kilometer -mile front line where the fighting grinds on despite U S -led efforts to broker a peace deal A stunning Ukrainian drone attack Though Russia has a bigger army and more economic guidance than Ukraine the Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend damaged or destroyed more than warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia Ukrainian executives disclosed touting it as a serious blow to the Kremlin s strategic arsenal and military prestige The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the Ukrainian attack set several planes ablaze at two air bases but announced the military repelled attempted attacks on three other air bases Both Zelenskyy and Putin have been eager to show U S President Donald Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting and avoid attainable punitive measures from Washington Ukraine has accepted a U S -proposed ceasefire but the Kremlin effectively rejected it Putin has made it clear that any peace settlement has to be on his terms Delegations from the warring sides agreed Monday to swap dead and wounded troops but their conditions for ending the war remained far apart Dmitry Medvedev a former Russian president who now serves as deputy head of the country s Safety Council chaired by Putin indicated on Tuesday that there would be no let-up in Russia s invasion The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift conquest and the complete destruction of Ukraine s establishment he mentioned In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes he declared that retribution is inevitable A Putin-Zelenskyy-Trump meeting unlikely soon Moscow says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to suggestions that a face-to-face meeting between Putin Trump and Zelenskyy could break the deadlock saying the possibility was unlikely in the near future Meanwhile a senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Commercial sector Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has traveled to Washington for talks about defense sanctions and postwar recovery disclosed Andrii Yermak the head of Ukraine s presidential office The delegation will meet with representatives from both major U S political parties as well as with advisers to Trump Yermak added Ukrainians in Kyiv welcomed the strikes on Russian air bases but were gloomy about prospects for a peace agreement Russia has invested too a great number of materials in this war to just stop for nothing reported serviceman Oleh Nikolenko His wife Anastasia Nikolenko a -year-old designer declared diplomacy cannot stop the fighting We need to show by force by physical force that we cannot be defeated she revealed Russia in recent weeks expanded its attacks on Sumy and the Kharkiv region following Putin s promise to create a buffer zone along the limit that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks from hitting Russian soil Sumy about kilometers miles from the demarcation had a prewar population of around The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its troops had taken the Ukrainian village of Andriivka close to the territory line in the Sumy region Ukraine made no immediate comment on the claim which could not be independently verified Russia also fired rocket artillery at Chystovodivka village in the Kharkiv region killing two people and injuring three others regional Gov Oleh Syniehubov announced