Ukraine peace efforts are complex: Kremlin

The Kremlin warned yesterday that work on trying to reach a settlement to end the war in Ukraine was extraordinarily complex and that it would be wrong to expect any imminent decisions.

It was commenting after Russia told Ukraine at peace talks in Turkey on Monday that it would only agree to end the fighting if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, demands Ukraine has repeatedly rejected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters yesterday that agreements reached at the Istanbul talks to exchange prisoners and the bodies of dead soldiers would be honoured however, and that work on agreeing a possible settlement would continue.

He said Russia and the US had not yet agreed on specific future contacts between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, but that Putin was ready for various high-level contacts if they were properly prepared, reports Reuters.

It was unlikely, added Peskov when asked, that Putin, Trump and Zelensky would hold face-to-face talks together in the near future.

Meanwhile, Zelensky yesterday accused Russia of "deliberately" targeting civilians in a rocket attack on the city of Sumy.

Russia's troops have also accelerated their advance, seeking to establish what Putin called a "buffer zone" inside Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region

A rocket attack on the city, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border, yesterday killed at least three people, Zelensky said.

"The Russians launched a savage strike on Sumy -- directly targeting the city and its ordinary streets with rocket artillery. It was a fully deliberate attack on civilians," he said in a post on social media.

He posted a video from the emergency services showing destroyed cars and the body of one victim lying on the road, reports AFP.