Il Messaggiere - Russian strike on Ukraine's Sumy kills 31, including two children

Ukraine said Russia launched ballistic missiles on Sumy's city centre on Palm Sunday.

The attack came two days after US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Russia to meet its leader Vladimir Putin and despite US President Donald Trump urging Moscow to end the war.

Sumy lies close to the Russian border and has come under increasing attack for weeks.

"As of 13:40 (1040GMT), 31 people were killed, including 2 children," the service said on social media, adding that "84 people were injured, including 10 children."

An AFP reporter saw bodies covered in silver sheets strewn in the centre of the city, with a severely destroyed trolleybus and rescuers working through the rubble of a building.

Rescuers said the strike hit the city centre "right when there were many people on the street."

They said people were wounded or killed "in the middle of the street, in cars, public transport, and in houses."

It is the second Russian attack with a large civilian death toll this month as Trump voices some anger at Moscow for "bombing like crazy" in Ukraine.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched a ballistic missile on Sumy and called on the world to put pressure on Russia to end the three-year war and called for a "strong response" from Europe and the US.

"Talking has never stopped ballistic missiles and bombs," Zelensky said, two days after Witkoff held hours-long talks with Putin in Saint Petersburg.

"Enemy missiles hit an ordinary city street, an ordinary life: houses, educational institutions, cars on the street," he said on social media.

- Palm Sunday -

"And this is on a day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem."

He added: "Only bastards can do this."

Local authorities in Sumy published footage of bodies strewn on the street and people running for safety, with cars on fire and wounded civilians on the floor.

An AFP reporter saw bodies strewn near a trolleybus and on the street.

Russia has relentlessly attacked Ukraine in recent weeks, even as Trump calls on it to "get moving" on ending the more than three-year-long war.

In early April, a Russian attack on the central city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people, including nine children.

Russia had refused a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire and has been accused by Ukraine and its European allies of dragging out the war and seeking to stall efforts for peace negotiations.

Sumy has been under increasing pressure since Moscow pushed back much of Ukraine's troops from its Kursk region across the border.

The eastern city so far has been spared from the kind of fighting seen further south in the Donetsk region but Kyiv for weeks has warned that Moscow could mount an offensive on Sumy.

Russia in recent weeks has claimed the capture of a village in the Sumy region for the first time since the early days of its 2022 invasion.

Russia launched its invasion partially through the Sumy region and briefly occupied parts of it before being pushed back by Ukrainian forces.

Moscow has not yet commented on the strike.

E.Colombo--IM