35 people<\/a> were killed and more than 100 injured in the blast. Among the dead were two children.<\/p>\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as a deliberate targeting of civilians. He urged United States President Donald Trump in an interview on the CBS TV network\u2019s 60 Minutes news programme to \u201cplease, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite the heavy civilian toll, Trump, who has previously faced criticism for his perceived leniency towards Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, said he was \u201ctold they made a mistake\u201d\u00a0 regarding the Sumy attack.<\/p>\n
Speaking again on Monday alongside El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele in the White House, Trump used the word \u201cmistake\u201d again and blamed Zelenskyy and former US President Joe Biden because they \u201callowed the war to happen\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Human shields\u2019 claim<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said it struck a military target, saying two Iskander-M tactical missiles hit a meeting of Ukrainian officers in Sumy. Moscow also blamed Kyiv for using civilians as \u201chuman shields\u201d without providing any evidence.<\/p>\n
Russia accused Ukraine of endangering civilians by carrying out military operations in urban areas.<\/p>\n
According to Russia\u2019s Ministry of Defence, the Sumy target was part of an operational command centre and the attack killed more than 60 Ukrainian soldiers. There has been no confirmation of that from Ukraine\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Monday urged Trump and his advisers to recognise that Putin is \u201cmocking their goodwill\u201d. Several other European Union leaders and the United Kingdom condemned Russia on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Russia accuses Germany of escalation<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the Kremlin issued warnings to Germany\u2019s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, over suggestions that his government might consider sending long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Merz told German media that if there was a consensus among European allies, he would support the move. \u201cThat would be one way of finally putting this country [Ukraine] strategically \u2013 to stay with the term \u2013 ahead of the situation,\u201d he said, adding that he was not convinced that \u201cPutin would react positively to weakness and peace offers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Merz called the Sumy attack \u201ca serious war crime\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that such a step would \u201cinevitably lead only to a further escalation\u201d and accused Western leaders of fuelling the war.<\/p>\n
Berlin, one of Kyiv\u2019s top arms suppliers, has so far held back from providing Taurus missiles despite repeated Ukrainian appeals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Union leaders and Britain condemned the Palm Sunday attack on Sumy, while US President Donald Trump called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,1824,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-20823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","14":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114339655607938872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}