Both Moscow and Kiev agree that Russia fired two Iskander missiles into Sumy yesterday. Today Russia’s Defense Ministry put out a release saying that their attack targeted a gathering of Ukraine’s commanding officers and that 60 servicemen were killed. Various sources report that the target was a military awards ceremony in downtown Sumy for Ukraine’s 117th Territorial Defense Brigade.
Kiev omits any mention of a military ceremony and claims that Russia targeted civilians, injuring 119 and killing 34, including 2 children (one 17 years old and another 12 years old). They say that a missile hit the center of town, and then a second missile hit about 200 meters away in a residential area—and the second one caused most of the injuries. They provide names of 20 men and women who died, with only one of them identified as military—Colonel Yuriy Yula, commander of the 27th rocket artillery brigade. As the only unit equipped with the HIMARS rocket launchers, Yula would be a high-value target.
Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko reported that about 12% of the injured were police officials and that “there are also dead and wounded employees of other services.... I would not like to speak for other services, but, unfortunately, we have losses—these are dead and wounded.” This may be the closest Kiev will come to speaking of any military on site, but it remains unclear as to whether his “other services” includes military and/or emergency services.
Konotop Mayor Artyom Semenikhin and member of Ukraine’s right-wing Svoboda party, blamed the head of Sumy’s military administration Volodymyr Artyukh for the loss of life in Sumy Oblast, which includes Konotop, claiming that Artyukh had recklessly organized the award ceremony for the troops so close to the front line. As reported by RT, Semenikhin was confident Artyukh, whom he called scum, would be prosecuted, and said: “He was warned that this should not be done.”
