Russian ballistic missiles killed at least 32 people, including two children, on Sunday in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, officials said — the latest in a string of attacks on urban centers that have caused heavy civilian casualties despite the Trump’s administration push for a cease-fire.
Two missiles hit the city center about 10:15 a.m., according to the regional prosecutor’s office. Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said the ballistic missiles struck when the streets were crowded with civilians out enjoying Palm Sunday, a Christian celebration popular in Ukraine. At least 83 people were injured, Mr. Klymenko added.
“People were harmed right in the middle of the street — in cars, on public transport, in their homes,” Mr. Klymenko said on social media.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted a video on social media that he said showed the aftermath of the attack in Sumy, only 18 miles from the Russian border. The video showed cars smashed and burned, as well as bloodied bodies laying motionless on the streets. Firefighters and civilians tended to the wounded as screams echoed in the background.
“A strong reaction from the world is needed. From the United States, from Europe, from everyone in the world who wants this war and the killings to end,” Mr. Zelensky said in a message posted on Telegram. “Russia seeks exactly this kind of terror and is dragging out the war.”
The strikes came just over a week after a Russian missile hit near a playground in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, killing 19 people, including nine children. In that attack and in the one on Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials, Russia used ballistic missiles, which travel at high speeds, making them very difficult to shoot down.
The two strikes were some of the deadliest in Ukraine this year and come amid an overall increase in civilian deaths since cease-fire talks began in March. The United Nations said last week that 164 civilians were killed in Ukraine last month, a 50 percent increase from February and 70 percent more than the same period a year earlier.
There was no immediate comment from Russia’s military about Sunday’s strikes on Sumy, which was home to about 250,000 people before the war and has become a refuge for Ukrainian civilians fleeing villages and towns along the Russian border to escape bombardment and potential assaults.
The city and surrounding region have regularly come under Russian attack over the past year, particularly since Ukraine used the area as a base for a cross-border offensive into Russia’s neighboring Kursk region. Moscow’s forces pushed most Ukrainian troops out of Kursk this year, but Kyiv has warned that Russia is preparing to push into the Sumy region and open a new front in the war.
Ukrainian officials say the recent attacks that have killed large numbers of civilians show that Russia is not actually interested in a cease-fire, despite the efforts by the Trump administration to broker one.
Both Russia and Ukraine have pledged to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, only to accuse each other of violations. Kyiv and Moscow have also agreed to a cease-fire on the Black Sea, but a deal has yet to come into effect. Russia has also rejected a full, unconditional 30-day cease-fire that Ukraine had accepted at the urging of the United States.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on Saturday that since cease-fire talks began last month in Saudi Arabia, Russia “only escalated its attacks on Ukrainian civilian objects and increased missile terror, including strikes on energy facilities.”
“This is Russia’s response to all peace proposals,” Mr. Sybiha told the state news agency Ukrinform. “They delay, manipulate, and play with their partners to continue aggression.”
