Russian drones kill at least 12 in Dnipro as Zelenskyy says more
Russia-Ukraine talks next week
[February 02, 2026]
By VOLODYMYR YURCHUK
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone strike on the Ukrainian city of
Dnipro hit a bus carrying mineworkers and killed at least a dozen
people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday, hours after President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the next round of peace talks between
Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place on Wednesday and
Thursday.
The strike injured several more people and sparked a fire that was
subsequently put out, according to the emergency services.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said it owned the bus
and accused Russia of carrying out “a large-scale terrorist attack on
DTEK mines in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” whose capital is Dnipro.
“The epicenter of one of the attacks was a company bus transporting
miners from the enterprise after a shift in the Dnipropetrovsk region,”
the company said in a Telegram post.
The strike came days after U.S. President Donald Trump said the Kremlin
had agreed to temporarily halt the targeting of the Ukrainian capital
and other cities, as the region suffers under freezing temperatures that
have brought widespread hardship to Ukrainians.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal on Sunday called the strike in
Dnipro “a cynical and targeted attack on energy sector workers," and
said it occured near the Ternivska mine east of the city.
Hours earlier, Ukraine's emergency services reported that Russian attack
drones injured six people at a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia,
southern Ukraine, on Sunday morning.
No peace talks on Sunday
Meanwhile, envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. had been expected to
meet Sunday in Abu Dhabi to continue negotiations aimed at ending
Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. But on Sunday morning,
Zelenskyy announced that they would take place next week instead.
“We have just had a report from our negotiating team. The dates for the
next trilateral meetings have been set: Feb. 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi.
Ukraine is ready for substantive talks, and we are interested in an
outcome that will bring us closer to a real and dignified end to the
war,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate comment from U.S. or Russian officials.
On Saturday afternoon, top Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev said he had
held a “constructive meeting with the U.S. peacemaking delegation” in
Florida.
Officials have so far revealed few details of the talks in Abu Dhabi,
which are part of a yearlong effort by the Trump administration to steer
the sides toward a peace deal and end almost four years of all-out war.
While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle with
Washington’s calls for a compromise, Moscow and Kyiv differ deeply over
what an agreement should look like.
[to top of second column]
|
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a joint press
conference with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish
President Karol Nawrocki, at the Presidential palace in Vilnius,
Lithuania, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
A central issue is whether Russia should keep or withdraw from areas
of Ukraine its forces have occupied, especially Ukraine’s eastern
industrial heartland called the Donbas, and whether it should get
land there that it hasn’t yet captured.
Drones strike Ukrainian maternity hospital
Earlier on Sunday, Russian attack drones struck a maternity hospital
in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian emergency service reported.
In a Telegram post, it said the strike wounded three women in the
hospital in Zaporizhzhia, and also sparked a fire in the gynecology
reception area that was later extinguished. Regional administration
head Ivan Fedorov later said the number of injured had risen to six.
The Kremlin confirmed Friday it agreed to hold off striking Kyiv
until Sunday, but refused to reveal any details, making it difficult
for an independent assessment of whether the conciliatory step had
indeed taken place.
In the past week, Russia has struck energy assets in the southern
Ukrainian city of Odesa and in Kharkiv in the northeast. It also hit
the Kyiv region on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring four.
Overnight into Sunday, Russia launched 90 attack drones, with 14
striking nine locations, Ukraine’s air force said in a Telegram
post. A woman and a man were killed in an overnight drone strike in
Dnipro, according to local administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.
Russian shelling also hit central Kherson, a city in southern
Ukraine, soon after 7 a.m., seriously wounding a 59-year-old woman,
according to a Facebook post by the municipal military
administration.
Russia's Defense Ministry on Sunday morning said its forces had used
operational-tactical aviation, attack drones, missile forces and
artillery to strike transport infrastructure used by Ukrainian
forces.
In a separate post Sunday, it said that Russian air defenses shot
down 21 Ukrainian drones flying over southwestern and western
Russia. It did not mention any casualties or damage.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
