President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack, one of Ukraine’s deadliest strikes this year – calling for a tough international response to Moscow.
“Only revelers can do this. Take the lives of ordinary people,” Zelenskiy wrote on social media. A shocking video shows corpses on the ground, a destroyed bus and burnt cars in the middle of a city street.
He said: “This is a day for people to go to church: the feast of the Lord entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.”
Interior Minister Clementko said the victims were on the streets, in vehicles, public transport and buildings during the strike.
“On a major church feast day, intentionally vandalize civilians,” he wrote. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff of Zelenskiy, said the missiles contained clustered ammunition. “The Russians do this to kill as many civilians as possible,” he said.
Reuters is seeking comment from Russian authorities.
Security official Andriy Kovalenko, who runs Ukraine’s Center for Anti-False Information, noted that the strike was carried out after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow.
“Russia is building all this so-called diplomacy… around civilian strikes,” he wrote in the telegram.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Ukrainian franchise Witkoff held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Friday to seek a Ukrainian peace deal as Trump told Russia to “moving.”
After Sunday’s strike, Zelensky called on the United States and Europe to struggle against Russia in response to what he called terrorism.
He wrote: “Russia wants this kind of terror completely and delays the war. Without pressure on the invaders, peace cannot be possible. Negotiations never cease ballistic missiles and air bombs.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently accounts for about 20% of the country’s territory in the east and south. The Russian army has been slowly growing lately, although missile and drone strikes now occupy the war.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine carried out five attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure the day before, which was called a violation of a moratorium on the U.S. brokers who went on such strikes.
Ukraine and Russia agreed to pause the strike on each other’s energy facilities last month, but both sides repeatedly accused each other of destroying the suspension.
