MOSCOW/KYIV: On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict, a Russian highway bridge blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia.

After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday.

The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war - but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting.

Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war.

At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia’s Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4,300 km (2,670 miles) away.

The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases.

A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said.

RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES AIR BASE ATTACKS, SAYS FIRES PUT OUT

Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official.

Russia’s Defence Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday.

It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia - where “the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire”.

The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said.

Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said.

Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450 square km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months.—Reuters