At least 12 people, including nine members of a children's acrobatics team, have been killed in a road collision in eastern Siberia, Russian officials said.
Regional officials in the city of Khanty-Mansiysk said in a statement on December 4 that a bus carrying 29 children and three accompanying adults was rammed by a truck.
The children were returning to their hometown of Nefteyugansk from a competition in another city.
It was not immediately clear whether the truck driver was among those killed in the collision.
It was also not immediately clear whether weather conditions contributed to the collision. Temperatures in the area are around -17 Celsius.
Later on December 4, Rusian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those killed in a phone call to Natalya Komarova, the head of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area.
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Putin ordered "all necessary assistance" to be given to the families of those killed and injured.
