A Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy yesterday, in which at least three people were killed and many others injured, was described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “brutal.”
Ukrainian authorities said a barrage of multiple rockets struck apartment buildings and a medical facility in the center of the northeastern city a day after direct peace talks made no progress on ending the three-year war.
Zelenskiy said one of the rockets fired at Sumy pierced the wall of an apartment building, but failed to detonate.
Photo:: Reuters
“That’s all you need to know about Russia’s ‘desire’ to end this war,” Zelenskiy wrote in a post on Telegram. “It is clear that without global pressure, without decisive action from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who holds power, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not agree even to a ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has traveled to Washington for talks about defense, sanctions and postwar recovery, said Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office.
The delegation is to meet with representatives from both major US political parties, as well as with advisers to US President Donald Trump, Yermak added.
In Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, yesterday said that there would be no letup in Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
“The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms. but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of [Ukraine’s government],” he said.
In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he said that “retribution is inevitable.”
“Our army is pushing forward and will continue to advance,” Medvedev said, adding that “everything that needs to be blown up will be blown up, and those who must be eliminated will be.”
Ukrainians on the streets of Kyiv welcomed their country’s stunning drone strike on Russian air bases, but were gloomy about the chances for a peace agreement.
The Russians “won’t negotiate peace with anyone,” 43-year-old Ukrainian serviceman Oleh Nikolenko said. “Russia has invested too many resources in this war to just ... stop for nothing.”
Anastasia Nikolenko, a 38-year-old designer, said diplomacy cannot stop the fighting.
“We need to show by force, by physical force, that we cannot be defeated,” she said.
Russia has recently expanded its attacks on Sumy and in the Kharkiv region following Putin’s promise to create a buffer zone along the border that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks hitting Russian soil.
Sumy is about 25km from the Russian border. It had a prewar population of about 250,000.
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