RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian strike on Sumy targeted Ukrainian and NATO officers – Lavrov

Sunday’s missile strike on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy was aimed at senior Ukrainian and Western military personnel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

His comments followed a report from the Russian Defense Ministry, which confirmed that two Iskander-M missiles had struck the location, killing at least 60 senior commanders.

“We have facts about who was at the facility that was hit in Sumy. It was another meeting of Ukrainian military leaders with their Western colleagues, who were either masquerading as mercenaries or I don’t know who,” Lavrov told Interfax on Monday.

“There are NATO servicemen there and they are directly in charge,”the top diplomat added. “Everyone knows this,” Lavrov said, referring to last month’s New York Times report detailing US involvement in Ukrainian attacks on Russia since the escalation of the conflict in 2022.

Kiev has routinely flouted international law by placing armaments in or near civilian infrastructure, the minister said.

”International humanitarian law categorically prohibits the deployment of military facilities and weapons on the territory of civilian facilities,” Lavrov stated. Despite this, from the earliest stages of the conflict, “there were ‘a million’ examples of [Kiev’s] deployment of artillery and air defense systems in city blocks near kindergartens,” he added.

“How many videos have been posted on the Internet, when Ukrainian women shout for the military to get away from stores and playgrounds. But this practice continues,” the diplomat said.

According to local authorities in Sumy, the Russian missile strike killed over 20 civilians and wounded more than 80 others.

Reacting to the claim, the Russian Defense Ministry accused Kiev of systematically using its civilian population “as a human shield.”

Several Ukrainian officials have criticized the location chosen for the meeting.

Artyom Semenikhin, mayor of neighboring city of Konotop and a member of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party, blamed the head of the Sumy Region’s military administration for organizing the conference in a civilian area so close to the front line.

Sumy is situated some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Russian border and the nearby Kursk Region, an area where heavy fighting is taking place.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Kursk kills woman, injures nine, authorities say

A Ukrainian overnight drone attack killed an 85-year-old woman, injured nine people and sparked fires in several buildings in the Russian city of Kursk near the border with Ukraine, regional authorities said on Tuesday.

"Kursk has been subjected to a massive enemy attack overnight," the Kursk region administration said in a post on Telegram messaging app.

A multi-storey apartment building was damaged in result of the drone attack, with several flats catching fire, acting mayor of Kursk, Sergei Kotlyarov said on Telegram. Residents have been evacuated to a nearby school, he added.

Drones also hit also an ambulance garage, damaging 11 cars, the region's administration said.

The scale of the attack was not immediately clear but Russia's Baza and SHOT Telegram channels, which often publish information from sources in the security services and law enforcement, said that more than 20 blasts shook the city.

They posted photos of what looked like a multi-storey residential building on fire at night.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war, which Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine more than three years ago.

Ukrainian troops, which staged a cross-border incursion into the Kursk region of which the city of Kursk is the administrative centre, still remainin parts of it, although Russian forces have recaptured much lost territory.

The attack follows a Russian missile and bomb attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy over the weekend that killed 35 people and injured at least 119.

RT/Reuters