World leaders on Sunday condemned a Russian missile strike on Ukraine, one of the deadliest attacks in months, while US President Donald Trump called it a “horrible thing” and a “mistake.”
Two ballistic missiles hit the center of the northeastern city of Sumy, close to the Russian border, on Sunday morning, killing at least 34 people and wounding more than 100 others, Ukrainian authorities said.
The strike came two days after US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and push Trump’s efforts to end the more than three-year war.
Photo: AP
“I think it was terrible, and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One while headed back to Washington on Sunday evening.
Asked to clarify what he meant by a “mistake,” Trump said that “they made a mistake ... you’re gonna ask them” — without specifying who or what he was referring to.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the attack “horrifying” and a “tragic reminder of why President Trump and his administration are putting so much time and effort into trying to end this war and achieve durable peace.”
Emergency services said the missiles killed 34 people, including two children, and wounded 117, including 15 children.
People ran for cover amid burning cars and the dead were seen covered in silver sheets at the scene where rescuers worked through the rubble of a building near a destroyed trolleybus.
The Russian attack damaged 20 buildings, including a university, five apartment buildings, cafes, shops and the district court, he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply alarmed and shocked” by the strike, which highlighted a “devastating pattern of similar assaults on Ukrainian cities and towns in recent weeks,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said.
One witness said that she heard two explosions.
“A lot of people were very badly injured. A lot of corpses,” she said, struggling to speak.
It was the second Russian attack this month to cause a large civilian death toll. An attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home city of Kryvi Rig killed at least 18 people, including nine children.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the strike on Sumy showed Russia’s “blatant disregard for human lives, international law and the diplomatic efforts of President Trump.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “appalled” by the attack, which Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described as a “cowardly” act by Russia.
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