Russian Palm Sunday Strike Kills Over 30 In Sumy
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
SUMY, UKRAINE (Worthy News) – A Russian missile strike on Palm Sunday killed at least 32 people and injured nearly 100 others, including children, in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, local authorities said.
“The Russians hit the city of Sumy with missiles, killing civilians,” Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, wrote on social media platform X.
Sunday’s strike, the worst attack on civilians this year, comes a day after Russia and Ukraine’s top diplomats accused each other of violating a temporary U.S.-brokered truce to pause strikes on energy infrastructure.
Footage reviewed by Worthy News showed bodies lying on the streets while the injured were being treated between burning buildings and cars.
The carnage interrupted Palm Sunday, the Christian holiday celebrated a week before Easter when many Ukrainians attend church.
Officials said besides those killed, 99 people had been injured, including 11 children, underscoring the challenges to negotiate an end to the 3-year-old war. An injured mother was seen consoling her crying child.
‘DELIBERATE TERROR’
With the dead and injured mounting, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of deliberate terror. “Enemy missiles hit an ordinary city street, ordinary life: houses, educational institutions, cars on the street … And this on a day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the feast of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem,” he wrote on social media.
Zelenskyy said the Kremlin ignored a U.S. proposal for a complete and unconditional ceasefire. “Unfortunately, there in Moscow, they are convinced they can keep killing with impunity.”
The attack on Sumy followed a deadly missile strike on Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih on April 4 that killed some 20 people, including nine children.
Evelyn, a 23-year-old pharmacist in Kryvyi Rih, told Worthy News recently that she lives with her parents due to the armed conflict. “I’m scared to be alone because of the war,” she added. Kryvyi Rih is my city. Sometimes, it [a missile or drone] flies into residential buildings at night. It’s scary and very loud.”
Zelenskyy demanded a “tough reaction” from the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. U.S. President Donald J. Trump has expressed frustration over the troubled road to the peace he has been campaigning for. “Russia has to get moving. Too many people are DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war,” Trump remarked Friday on social media.
His comments came as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday. They met after Trump urged his Russian counterpart to “get moving” on a ceasefire in Ukraine.
LENGTHY TALKS
The Kremlin said the talks lasted more than four hours and focused on “aspects of a Ukrainian settlement.”
Russia’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev described Saturday’s meeting, Witkoff’s third with Putin this year, as “productive.”
However, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, denied suggesting the country could be partitioned.
In an interview, Kellogg reportedly proposed that British and French troops could adopt zones of control in the west of Ukraine as part of a “reassurance force.”
Russia’s army could then remain in the occupied east. “You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War Two,” The Times newspaper quoted him as saying
Kellogg claimed on social media that the article had “misrepresented” his explanation.
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