ADVERTISEMENTTwo days after the Russian attack on Soumy, Ukraine mourns its deceased. Sunday April 13, at least 35 people, including two children, were killed In this new bombing, which also wounded 119.
While Many Ukrainians went to church To celebrate twigs on Sunday, two ballistic missiles hit the city around 10:15 am, reaching an area housing a number of religious buildings, the Ukrainian authorities said.
“It is the center of the city, the central part, and [dimanche] was a great religious holiday. There are religious buildings on both sides of the street where the bombing took place. People went to worship, So there were a lot of injured“Explains Oleh Strulka, spokesperson for the Emergency Service in the Soumy region, who specifies that many bodies were lying in the street.
Oleh Strulka also described how firefighters fought to turn off the remains of burned cars scattered among the rubble of damaged buildings.
On Monday, the emergency teams continued to clear the glass shards. At the same time, many people gathered to lay flowers on improvised memorials in honor of deceased.
Soumy’s attack is The second major attack to make so many civilian victims in just over a week. On April 4, a deadly missile shot in the birthplace of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Kryvyi Rih, killed around twenty people, including nine children.
International conviction
Unanimously, European leaders condemned the attacksome, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lithuanian Kestis Budrys, calling it as War crime.
The latter echoes Ukraine. He said LRussians have used submunition weapons to target civilians. The latter “disperse submunitions or small bombs randomly on a large area”, representing “an immediate threat to civilians,” said Human Rights Watch.
For the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, whose country provides the rotating presidency of the European Union, this Russian attack is a response to the ceasefire agreement proposed by the United States, more than a month ago. “I hope that President Trump and the US administration will see that Russia laughs at their good willand I hope that the right decisions will be made, “he said.
An opinion shared by the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, who stressed that this attack occurred just after the United States envoy, Steve Witkoff, went to Saint Petersburg to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This highlights the fact that “Russia shows total contempt for the peace processand that Russia has no consideration for human life “.
Friedrich Merz, designated Chancellor of Germany, described the attack on Soumy as a “serious war crime”. He also clarified that he remained faithful to his past calls in favor of sending long -range cruise missiles to Ukrainewhat the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, had refused to do. The future chancellor said that the Ukrainian army should be able to “get ahead of the situation” and that any long -range missile delivery should be made in consultation with European partners.
Increase pressure on Russia
France, for its part, said that this attack demonstrated that Vladimir Putin did not intend to accept a cease-fire. Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, also called the EU to “pmake the most severe sanctions against Russia To suffocate its economy and prevent it from feeding its war effort “.
The European Union has already imposed sixteen sets of sanctions on Russia and is currently working on a seventeenth seriesbut it is increasingly difficult to agree on these measures, as they also have an impact on European economies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the international reaction, but he called for Increase the pressure on Moscow To end the war. “”Only real pressure on Russia can end this situation. We need tangible sanctions against the sectors that finance the Russian killing machine, “he wrote on X.
In his night’s night speech on Monday, the Ukrainian president said that “propagandists of the Russian state are preparing their audience to the fact that negotiations and diplomacy will not work”.
ADVERTISEMENT“They are not afraid in Moscow right now. And If the pressure on Russia is not sufficient, they will continue to do what they are used to doing : Continue to fight, “he added.
For his part, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, says that The missiles aimed “Ukrainian military commanders And their Western colleagues “in Soumy, accusing kyiv of using civilians as shields by organizing military meetings in the center of the city. The Russian Defense Ministry also said that the attack had killed more than 60 soldiers, but provided no evidence in support of its claims.
