Sumy strike targeted meeting of Ukrainian commanders – Moscow
The Defense Ministry in Moscow has confirmed that Russian forces were behind the missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday, saying that it targeted a gathering of the country’s commanding officers.
The attack has left more than 60 Ukrainian servicemen dead, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
It was carried out with the use of two Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles despite “active counteraction by the Ukrainian military’s electronic warfare means and foreign-made air defense systems,” the statement read.
The target of the attack was “a meeting of the command staff of the Seversk operational-tactical group” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was taking place in Sumy that day, the ministry said.
“The Kiev regime continues to use the Ukrainian population as a human shield, placing military facilities and holding events with the participation of servicemen in the center of a densely populated city,” the statement read.
The local authorities in Sumy said on Sunday that the Russian strike left over 20 dead and more than 80 wounded, all whom were civilians.
Sumy is a regional capital and a frontline city of over 250,000 people, located just 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border with Russia. It has become a focal point of the Ukrainian retreat which has following Kiev’s failed incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
Following the attack, Artyom Semenikhin, a mayor of the Ukrainian city of Konotop and member of the right-wing Svoboda party, blamed the head of Sumy’s military administration for the loss of life, claiming that he had been the one to organize an award ceremony for the troops so close to the line.
“He was warned that this should not be done,” Semenikhin insisted, adding that he was confident that Artyukh will be prosecuted for his conduct.
Ukrainian lawmaker Mariana Bezuglaya, a former member of Vladimir Zelensky’s political party, suggested that “the Russians had information about the gathering” in Sumy. She urged the Ukrainian military “not [to] gather the troops for award ceremonies, especially in civilian cities.”
Ukrainian journalist and former legislator Igor Mosiychuk also called for the arrest of Artyukh and Zelensky party legislator Mikhail Ananachenko, who, he claimed, “beside the soldiers, gathered civilians, including children” for the ceremony.
