A Russian ballistic missile strike on the northern Ukrainian metropolis of Sumy killed at the very least 32 folks and injured 80 others on Sunday morning, in keeping with Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the assault – one of many deadliest strikes on Ukraine this yr – and known as for a troublesome worldwide response towards Moscow.
“Only scoundrels can act like this. Taking the lives of ordinary people,” he wrote on social media, alongside a chilling video which confirmed corpses on the bottom, a destroyed bus and burnt-out vehicles in the course of a metropolis avenue.
“And this is on a day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the feast of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem,” Zelenskyy mentioned.
Interior minister Klymenko mentioned the victims had been on the road, in automobiles, public transport and in buildings when the strike hit.
“Deliberate destruction of civilians on an important church feast day,” he wrote.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of employees, mentioned the missiles contained cluster munitions.
“The Russians are doing this to kill as many civilians as possible,” he mentioned.
Reuters was looking for remark from Russian authorities.
Andriy Kovalenko, a safety official who runs Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, famous that the strike got here after a go to to Moscow by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Russia is building all this so-called diplomacy … around strikes on civilians,” he wrote on Telegram.
Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s particular envoy for Ukraine, held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in St. Petersburg on the seek for a Ukraine peace deal as Trump instructed Russia to “get moving.”
In the aftermath of Sunday’s strike, Zelenskyy known as on the U.S. and Europe to get powerful on Russia in response to what he described as terrorism.
“Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging out this war. Without pressure on the aggressor, peace is impossible. Talks have never stopped ballistic missiles and aerial bombs,” he wrote.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and presently holds about 20% of the nation’s territory within the east and south. Russian forces have been slowly advancing within the east of late, although missile and drone strikes now dominate the warfare.
Russia’s Defense Ministry mentioned Saturday that Ukraine had carried out 5 assaults on Russian power infrastructure over the day past in what it known as a violation of a U.S.-brokered moratorium on such strikes.
Ukraine and Russia agreed to pause strikes on one another’s power services final month, however either side have repeatedly accused one another of breaking the moratorium.
Source: www.dailysabah.com