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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited U.S. President Donald Trump to visit Ukraine before any potential agreement with Russia to end the ongoing war, foreign media reported on Monday.
“Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zelenskyy said during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes. The interview was recorded before Sunday’s deadly Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy, which resulted in the deaths of 34 people, including two children, and left 117 others injured.
Trump condemned the attack, calling it “a horrible thing,” while Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, labelled it as a “war crime.”
Meanwhile, reports suggest that Russian forces, stationed near the Ukrainian border, are preparing for a major offensive.
The attack came at a time when the U.S. has been exploring diplomatic avenues under Trump to seek a resolution to the war, which has now entered its fourth year.
According to US media reports, President Trump described it as “terrible” and said he had been “told they made a mistake”. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt-Gen Keith Kellogg, condemned the missile attack as crossing “any line of decency.”
Merz, on the other hand, told German public broadcaster ARD that the attack on Sumy was “a serious war crime.” “It was a perfidious act… and it is a serious war crime, deliberate and intended,” Merz reportedly said.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Russia’s actions as a “blatant disregard of human lives, international law, and the diplomatic efforts of President Trump” and called for “strong measures” to impose a ceasefire on Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the attack “barbaric,” reportedly saying “Russia was and remains the aggressor, in blatant violation of international law.” She stressed that Europe would continue to exert “strong pressure” on Russia until lasting peace was achieved, “on Ukraine’s terms and conditions.”
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “appalled at Russia’s horrific attacks on civilians in Sumy”, BBC reported.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres also sounded alarm, saying, “Attacks against civilians and civilian objects are prohibited under international humanitarian law, and any such attacks, wherever they occur, must end immediately.”
The UN reiterated its support for “meaningful efforts towards a just, lasting and comprehensive peace that fully upholds Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”
Sunday’s missile strike was the deadliest attack on civilians in Ukraine this year. Earlier, a similar Russian missile attack on April 4 in the city of Kryvyi Rih killed 20 people and injured 61, with Russia claiming it targeted a meeting of “unit commanders and Western instructors” in a restaurant.
