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At least 34 civilians have been killed and 117 injured in a Russian ballistic missile strike in the Smie city of northeastern Ukraine, President Volodymia Zelensky and a government official.
Families and children were reborn on the streets, buildings were destroyed, and cars were filmed in flames a week before Christians celebrated Sunday, a week before Easter. Two children were killed and 11 were injured in the attack, Zelensky said.
“It is an absolute evil to launch such an attack on a major Christian holiday,” Foreign Minister Andri Sibiha said. He said his office “shares detailed information about this war crime with all our partners and international organizations,” urging “all capitals and headquarters to respond strongly.”
“For the second month in a row, Russia has refused to accept the US proposal for a complete ceasefire that Ukraine unconditionally accepted on March 11,” he said.
The strike came less than a day after President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkov, met with President Vladimir Putin in Russia, discussed ending his full-scale war. The two men shook hands and posed for the TV camera ahead of their long four-hour lecture in St. Petersburg.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the ongoing US-Russia talk as “hard work,” and said in a comment on the state’s television broadcast on Sunday, lowering expectations for a quick breakthrough.
He said Russia and the US needed “more work and time” before they could recover their relationship.
However, Ukrainian officials said the fatal strike against the densely populated Sumi was evidence that Putin wanted to continue his full military campaign, the largest in European soil since World War II, and that he had no interest in negotiating a ceasefire. One source told the Financial Times that Putin was “evidently playing with Trump.”
The US president recently expressed his dissatisfaction about Putin’s view of him as limping into peace talks.
Russia rejected Trump’s proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, and first argued all of Putin’s maximalist demands to end the war.
They include recognizing the annexation of large-scale territorial annexation, including areas that Moscow does not control, and effectively ending the Ukraine’s ability to serve as a sovereign state and rolling back European post-Cold War security orders.
Putin offered to suspend energy infrastructure strikes last month, but he has not approved a ceasefire in the Black Sea unless the West lifts sanctions on some of its Russian lenders. The Russian Ministry of Defense also argues that Ukraine is not remaining in the conditions of an energy ceasefire.
Smie, located on the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine, was invaded by Moscow’s troops on the first day of the 2022 invasion and was under partial occupation.
Russian troops were pushed out later that year, and following the surprising invasion of Ukraine’s Kursk region last August, Sami has been under intense Russian attacks with guided air bombs, drones and missiles targeting critical infrastructure and bustling neighbourhoods.
Zelensky condemned the missile strike, sought a stiffer international response, and reiterated that “peace is impossible” without pressure on Russia.
The strike comes a week after a Russian missile attack killed 20 people, including nine children, in Zelensky’s hometown of Krivii RIH.
“Russia wants this very kind of fear and is dragging this war out,” he said.
German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz described the attack as a “wild bar.”
“This Russian attack shows the extent to which Russia is willing to create peace. Instead, we see that Russia is mercilessly continuing its war of aggression against Ukraine. This war must end and Russia must ultimately agree to a comprehensive ceasefire.
Additional Reports by Laura Pitel of Berlin
