Putin calls Russian airstrike on Sumy ‘retribution’ for Ukrainian ‘crimes’ in Kursk region

Vladimir Putin has confirmed that the Russian military intentionally targeted a civilian building in a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on 13 April, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Monday.

Putin told reporters that Sumy State University was holding an award ceremony for Ukrainian servicemen at the time, and called the strike “retribution”.

“These Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) units and nationalists had committed crimes in the Kursk region. We consider these people criminals who deserved retribution for their deeds in the border region. … They received their retribution. It was done to punish them,” Putin said.

The two ballistic missiles used in the Russian attack on Sumy, a city with a population of around 250,000 people, killed 35 people and injured 129 others.

Hours after the strike, Artem Semenikhin, the mayor of Konotop, another city in the Sumy region, accused Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Sumy region’s military administration, of organising the military award ceremony and gathering Ukrainian servicemen from the 117th Brigade in Sumy on the day of the strike.

Maryana Bezuhla, a member of the Ukrainian parliament known for her criticism of the AFU leadership, suggested that Sumy had been targeted after information about the award ceremony had been leaked to Russian forces.

Artyukh admitted in a comment to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne the following day that a military award ceremony had been due to be held in Sumy, but did not specify whether it had gone ahead or not. Despite denying he had any role in organising the event, Artyukh was dismissed from his post by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky two days later.