Life goes on in Ukraine’s Sumy, despite threat of attack

The humdrum of daily life in Sumy belies the constant threat of death its people have lived with since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago. Days after Russia targeted the city’s center in back-to-back missile strikes, killing 35 people and injuring more than 100 others in the deadliest attack on Ukrainian civilians this year, neighbours gossiped in front of their apartment block as children played soccer in the courtyard. They paused to look up only when hearing the buzzing of attack drones and familiar thud of Ukrainian air defenses before resuming what they were doing.

Sumy is only about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border of Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian soldiers are defending the last sliver of territory they took in a surprise offensive last summer. Residents say there has been an uptick in attacks on Sumy in recent weeks, though none as bloody as Sunday’s airstrike, which targeted a busy intersection. The attack in Sumy, which had a prewar population of about 250,000, came just over a week after a Russian missile strike killed about 20 people, including nine children, in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. Russia said it was targeting a meeting of soldiers, but there is no evidence to support the claim.

The attacks on their cities has left many Ukrainians wondering where the next will occur and cast a shadow over the ongoing ceasefire talks being brokered by the United States. The talks have produced only muted results, as Russia insists on conditions Ukraine deems impossible and Kyiv believes Moscow’s forces are gearing up for a fresh offensive. To the people of Sumy, the talks seem far-removed from their daily struggles. As some of the victims of Sunday’s attack were laid to rest on Tuesday, Viktor Voitenko, 56, described how he ended up paralyzed in a hospital bed. He was working as a security guard when the second missile hit and shattered his spine. As he spoke, his wife Hanna, 40, lovingly applied his deodorant — a simple act he could no longer perform.

Mention of the ceasefire negotiations conjured a weary smile from her. “It’s empty talks. They don’t move anywhere. It seems to be public relations to me,” Hanna Voitenko said. “Nothing happens to bring comfort to regular people.” Her husband offered his own take: “They are stalling for time.” Work, errands and planned family visits brought the victims of Sunday’s attack to the intersection of Petropavlivska Street and the state university on Sunday morning.

Asia Pohorila, 20, was working at a cafe and thinking about whether to buy pastries after her shift when the first missile strike left her in shock and bleeding profusely from her legs. On Tuesday, the times “10:20” and “10:23” were still scrawled in marker on her thighs, noting when medics applied tourniquets to them.

Maryna Illiashenko and her 13-year old son, Kyrylo, heard the sound of that first blast ricochet across the center city as they waited for a bus. They were headed to visit his grandmother, but the teenager was more excited about wrestling practice later that afternoon. Undeterred, they boarded the bus when it arrived a few minutes later. One stop later, the second missile crashed a few feet from the vehicle, scorching nearby cars, burning passengers alive, killing the bus driver and causing shrapnel to rain down. Three fragments tore through Kyrylo’s scalp and scratched Maryna’s face.

Enveloped in smoke and debris, the teen leaped out of the shattered bus window and pried open the locked door from outside, saving half a dozen trapped passengers, witnesses said. “I don’t want to think about this as a new type of reality for Sumy city. We can clearly see that our frontline cities are being erased,” Oleh Strilka, a spokesperson for the city’s State Emergency Service, said while standing outside the collapsed facade of the university building, where the second missile struck. “The most painful thing for me is our children. Why do they need to suffer?” he asked. “I don’t want our 13-year-old kids becoming heroes.” Liudmyla Shelukhina, 70, was waiting in a neighbour’s house for a haircut. She was standing in line in the kitchen when the windows suddenly shattered.

She said the fridge she was next to saved her life. “I would have been decapitated.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” joked her husband, Viktor, a former soldier. Their son was hospitalized in the attack.

Rescue workers like Dmytro Shevchenko, 31, have to be prepared to head to the scene of the next attack at all times. He was among the first to arrive at the university grounds on Sunday. Most people he found were too badly injured to help, he said, wiping away tears.

He holds on to little hope that ceasefire talks will bear fruit. “I just don’t believe in it,” he said.

The children’s hospital where Kyrylo Illiashenko is recovering bears the scars of repeated drone attacks. More than 100 windows were shattered only two weeks ago when a massive drone attack struck nearby, said Chief Dr. Ihor Zmislya.

As workers cleared rubble from the sites of the missile strikes Tuesday and Kyrylo expounded on his favorite computer games, an explosion sounded in the distance. From the teen’s hospital window, plumes of smoke could be seen rising from a nearby railway line.

“This is our reality,” said Zmislya. “It happens all the time.”

Meanwhile, NATO’s support for Ukraine remains “unwavering,” the alliance’s secretary-general said on Tuesday, emphasizing that more than 20 billion euros — over $22 billion — in security assistance has already been pledged by NATO allies in the first three months of the year. Mark Rutte spoke on Tuesday in Ukraine’s port city of Odesa, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky. His visit came days after two Russian ballistic missiles struck the city of Sumy on Palm Sunday morning, killing at least 35 people, including two children, and injuring 119. The attack on the northeastern city, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Russia, marked the second large-scale attack in just over a week to result in significant civilian casualties.

Earlier this month, about 20 people were killed, including nine children, after a Russian ballistic missile struck Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih on April 4. “I’m here today because I believe Ukraine’s people deserve real peace, real safety and security in their country, in their homes,” Rutte said during a joint news conference with Zelenskyy. The two met with wounded Ukrainian soldiers at a hospital in Odesa. This is Rutte’s first trip to Ukraine since US President Donald Trump assumed the lead in ceasefire negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which have included several rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia. “These discussions are not easy, not least in the wake of this horrific violence,” Rutte said, referring to the recent strikes. “But we all support President Trump’s push for peace.”

Ukraine has endorsed the broader U.S.-proposed cease-fire deal, though Russia has effectively stalled the process by attaching far-reaching conditions.