BRUSSELS— Russia on Monday claimed its deadly missile attack on Ukraine’s Sumy that killed and wounded scores including children had targeted a gathering of Ukrainian troops, while European leaders condemned the attack as a war crime.
Ukrainian officials have said two ballistic missiles on Palm Sunday morning hit the heart of Sumy, a city about 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Russia, killing at least 34, including two children, and wounding 119. It was the second large-scale attack to claim civilian lives in Ukraine in just over a week.
Asked about the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s military only strikes military targets. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strike targeted a gathering of senior military officers and accused Kyiv of using civilians as shields by holding military meetings in the city’s center.
The ministry claimed to kill over 60 troops. Russia gave no evidence to back its claims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a global response to the attack, saying the first strike hit university buildings and the second exploded above street level. “Only real pressure on Russia can stop this. We need tangible sanctions against those sectors that finance the Russian killing machine,” he wrote Monday on social media.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called the attacks “Russia’s mocking answer” to Kyiv’s agreement to a ceasefire proposed by the U.S. over a month ago.
“I hope that President Trump, the U.S. administration, see that the leader of Russia is mocking their goodwill, and I hope the right decisions are taken,” Sikorski told reporters in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers met.
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen noted that the attack on Sumy came shortly after President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Saint Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It demonstrates that “Russia shows full disregard for the peace process, but also that Russia has zero regard for human life,” Valtonen said.
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kestutis Budrys, echoed Ukraine’s assertion that the Russian strike used cluster munitions to target civilians, calling it “a war crime by definition.” The Associated Press has been unable to verify that claim.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the attack shows that Putin has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, and called for the European Union to “take the toughest sanctions against Russia to suffocate its economy and prevent it from fueling its war effort.”
The EU has imposed 16 rounds of sanctions on Russia and is working on a 17th, but the measures are getting harder to agree on because they also impact European economies.
Germany’s chancellor-designate, Friedrich Merz, described the Sumy attack as “a serious war crime” during an appearance on ARD television.
Merz made clear he stands by his past calls to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, something that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to do. He said the Ukrainian military needs to be able to “get ahead of the situation” and that any delivery of long-range missiles must be done in consultation with European partners.
