Ukraine Says Russian Missile Attack Kills More Than 20 in Sumy

Ukraine said many people were killed and injured after Russian missiles struck the city of Sumy, days after US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war.

Two ballistic missiles hit the center of Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, on Palm Sunday morning, the city’s regional administration said on its Telegram channel. 

Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, put the preliminary toll at 21 people dead and 20 injured. The ballistic missile strikes on the center of the city came as many people were out on the streets and traveling in cars and on public transportation, he said. 

“The world must respond firmly. The United States, Europe, everyone in the world who wants this war and these killings to end,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media. “Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging this war out.”

The missile attack came on the day Christians were celebrating the pre-Easter holiday. It came after US President Donald Trump escalated pressure on Russia in his bid to secure a ceasefire in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Trump had said on Friday on his social media platform that “Russia has to get moving” and bemoaned the death toll from the war, now well into its fourth year. Witkoff, who’s become a key intermediary in Ukraine for Trump’s attempts to bring an end to the fighting, traveled to St. Petersburg the same day for his third meeting with Putin.

Negotiations on a ceasefire — which Trump predicted he could achieve soon after his January inauguration — have stalled following talks in Saudi Arabia last month. Russia is demanding the reconnection of one of its largest state banks to the SWIFT international messaging system that’s under the European Union’s jurisdiction as a condition for accepting a US-brokered truce in the Black Sea.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of breaching a 30-day moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure that’s due to expire April 18. 

Sunday’s strike by Russia follows one earlier in the month on Kryvih Rih in central Ukraine, Zelenskiy’s home town, that killed at least 20 people, including nine children. 

With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska.

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