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Russian officials confirm deadly Sumy attack, justify it as targeting “military meeting”

The mayor of Konotop said military personnel from the 117th Territorial Defense Brigade were receiving awards in Sumy during the strike. The military reportedly escaped harm by reaching shelter in time.

byMaria Tril

14/04/2025

3 minute read

Civilians killed by a Russian missile strike on Sumy on 13 April 2025. Credit: State Emergency Service

Russian officials confirm deadly Sumy attack, justify it as targeting “military meeting”

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed that its military forces struck the Ukrainian city of Sumy with two Iskander-M missiles on 13 April, according to several Russian media outlets.

Russian defence officials reported the target was a meeting location of the command staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Seversk operational-tactical group. The ministry claimed that the strike killed more than 60 Ukrainian military personnel.

“The Kyiv regime continues to use the Ukrainian population as human shields, placing military facilities and conducting events with military personnel in the center of a densely populated city,” the Russian military claimed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier declined to comment on the Russian strike on Sumy during a press briefing.

Ukrainian officials and local media reported that Russia attacked Sumy on 13 April with two ballistic missiles, killing 34 people, including two kids, and injuring 120 others, including 15 kids.

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said that 14 police officers were killed and injured, as well as officers of other services who were responding to the aftermath of the attack.

The attack also damaged 51 buildings, 34 cars, one bus and a university. Vasyl Karpusha, rector of Sumy State University, told Suspilne that the damage caused to the university in Sumy is in the hundreds of millions of hryvnias.

The mayor of Konotop, another major city in the Sumy Oblast, said that at the time of the strike, military personnel from the 117th Territorial Defense Brigade were receiving awards in Sumy. Mayor Artem Semenihin criticized the head of the regional military administration, Volodymyr Artiukh, for this. The mayor said that the military personnel were not harmed as they managed to reach shelter in time.

The Berdychiv district military administration reported that Colonel Yuriy Yula, commander of the 27th Reactive Artillery Brigade named after Petro Kalnyshevsky and former deputy commander of the 26th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, was killed in the Russian strike on Sumy. The administration later deleted this post from their social media.

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