This handout photograph, taken and released by Ukraine's Sumy Region Prosecutor's Office on April 13, 2025, shows the covered body of a person killed as Ukrainian law enforcement officers work at the site of a missile attack in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine. AFP
Kyiv said Moscow hit the northeastern city, close to the Russian border, with two ballistic missiles on Sunday morning and that the attack also wounded nearly 100 people.
US President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, said on X that the attack by Russian forces on civilian targets "crosses any line of decency".
The strike came two days after US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin and push Trump's efforts to end the war.
The local emergency service said 32 people died, including two children, and 99 were wounded, including 11 children.
Bodies were seen covered in silver sheets at the scene of the strike in the centre of the city, with a destroyed trolleybus. Rescuers worked through the rubble of a building.
'A lot of corpses'
One woman told AFP 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.
Trump has previously voiced anger at Moscow for "bombing like crazy" in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United States and Europe to give a "strong response" to Russia, adding: "Talking has never stopped ballistic missiles and bombs."
Russia, which did not immediately comment on the strike, has refused a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine.
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 ground.
Russia has relentlessly attacked Ukraine in recent weeks, expanding its war against Ukraine that has gone on for more than three years.
In early April, a Russian attack on the central city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people, including nine children.
Sumy has been under increasing pressure since Moscow pushed back many of Ukraine's troops from its Kursk region inside Russia, across the border.
The eastern Ukrainian city so far has been spared the kind of fighting seen farther south, in the Donetsk region. But Kyiv for weeks has warned that Moscow could mount an offensive on Sumy.
Russia launched its invasion partially through the Sumy region and briefly occupied parts of it before being pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
On Sunday, Russia said it captured another village in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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