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A Russian ballistic missile strike on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy has left at least 24 civilians dead and over 80 injured, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and government officials.
Families and children were filmed lying lifeless on the streets, with buildings destroyed and cars in flames a week before Easter when Christians celebrate Palm Sunday.
“Launching such an attack on a major Christian holiday is absolute evil,” said foreign minister Andriy Sybiha. He said that his office was “sharing detailed information about this war crime with all of our partners and international institutions”, urging “all capitals and headquarters to react strongly”.
“For the second month in a row, Russia has refused to accept the US proposal for a full ceasefire, which Ukraine unconditionally accepted on March 11,” he said “Instead, Russia ramps up its terror.”
The strike came less than a day after President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin in Russia to discuss bringing his full-scale war to an end. The two men shook hands and posed for TV cameras ahead of a four-hour long talk in St Petersburg, where Witkoff also visited a synagogue and an Orthodox Christian cathedral.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, described the ongoing US-Russia talks as “painstaking work” and played down expectations of a quick breakthrough in comments to state television broadcast on Sunday.
He said Russia and the US needed “more work and more time” before their relations could be restored.
But Ukrainian officials said that the deadly strike on densely-populated Sumy was proof that Putin wanted to continue his all-out military campaign — the largest on European soil since the second world war — and had no interest in negotiating a ceasefire. One official told the Financial Times that Putin was “clearly playing with Trump”.
The US president has expressed frustration in recent days about what he has viewed as Putin dragging his feet on peace talks.
Russia has rejected Trump’s proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, insisting on all of Putin’s maximalist demands for ending the war to be met first.
They include recognising his annexation of large swaths of territory — including areas Moscow does not control — as well as in effect ending Ukraine’s ability to function as a sovereign state and rolling back the post-cold war security order in Europe.
Though Putin offered to pause strikes on energy infrastructure last month, he has not endorsed a ceasefire in the Black Sea unless the west lifts sanctions on some of the Russian lenders. The Russian defence ministry also claims Ukraine is not abiding by the terms of the energy ceasefire.
Sumy, on the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, was invaded by Moscow’s forces and under partial occupation during the first days of the invasion in 2022.
Since Russian troops were pushed out later that year, and following the surprise Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region last August, Sumy has come under heavy Russian attack, with guided aerial bombs, drones and missiles targeting its critical infrastructure and bustling neighbourhoods.
Zelenskyy condemned the missile strike, calling for a firmer international response and reiterating that “peace is impossible” without sustained pressure on Russia.
The strike comes a week after a Russian missile attack killed 20 people, including nine children, in Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.
“Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging this war out,” he said.
