Nine people have been killed after a Russian drone hit a bus transporting workers in Ukraine, officials say.

The attack occurred on Wednesday morning in the south-central city of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region, across the Dnieper river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Regional chief Serhiy Lysak said at least 30 people were injured, adding that “the number of victims is constantly growing”.

The attack comes as talks in London on Wednesday aimed at securing a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia have been downgraded, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff no longer attending.

Images released by Lysak show the bus with a hole punctured through its roof, doors off hinges and glass scattered across its floor.

The bus appears to have been deliberately targeted. Russia has not commented on the attack.

There have also been drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the country’s east, for a second consecutive day.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared a 30-hour ceasefire for Easter Sunday. Ukraine had said it would mirror Russia’s actions. Each side accused the other of breaking the truce.

Last month, Moscow came up with a long list of conditions in response to a full ceasefire that had been agreed by the US and Ukraine.

The US has been holding talks with Russia and separately with Ukrainian and European officials to broker a truce.

Senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, the US and Ukraine are meeting in London, but the talks will not include foreign ministers.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Gen Keith Kellogg, is attending instead of Rubio and Witkoff, while UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy will be hosting a bilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart.

Witkoff, a property mogul and Donald Trump’s special envoy, has acted as a conduit between the White House and the Kremlin in recent months.

He is set to return to Moscow this week for another meeting with Putin.

It comes after reports the US is considering proposing to recognise Crimea as Russian territory as a means to bring an end to fighting, which has been ruled out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Crimea, internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Donald Trump has also recently said the US will walk away from brokering further Russia-Ukraine talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or injured on all sides since then.