The Russian attack on citizens in Soemy shows that Putin feels strengthened by Trump

Unlike US President Trump, the Kremlin did not speak of ‘a mistake’ on Sunday after the Russian rocket attack on the Ukrainian city of Soemy, in which at least forty civilians were killed and 141 were injured. The attack with two ballistic rockets, According to Kyiv Equipped with cluster munitions, when many residents of Soemy were outside for the celebration of Palm Sunday.

The anger in Ukraine is great about the deadliest Russian attack since September, especially now that conversations are being held about a ceasefire. “Only completely disturbed rig can do something like that,” said President VolodyMyr Zensky on Sunday In his evening speech to the population. Foreign Minister Andri Sybiha pointed out that, in contrast to Ukraine, Russia still refuses to accept an American proposal for a completely cease-fire. “Instead, Russia performs its terror campaign.” On Monday, Soemy, about thirty kilometers from the Russian border, re -bombarded.

A Ukrainian rescue worker rests for a moment after the Russian rocket attack on Soemy, in which at least forty people died.

Photo Roman Pilipey/AFP

While numerous Western government leaders with Zensensky their horrors about the massacre, chose Trump on Sunday not to be a culprit. But despite his great confidence in Vladimir Putin, Trump cannot have escaped that Russian attacks on Ukrainian civil locations are a crucial part of the Russian war against Ukraine; Ten days ago a ballistic rocket with cluster munitions above a playground in the city of Kryvy Rih exploded, with nineteen people killed, including nine children.

Countless attacks on citizens

The recent attacks are by no means exceptions. In recent years, the Russians have bombed thousands of Ukrainian schools, hospitals, apartment complexes, stations, hotels, restaurants, churches, market squares and shopping streets. At the air raid on the theater in Marioepol, in March 2022 According to the AP news agency Six hundred dead – also many children who were housed in the shelter under the building.

Have been the past three years According to figures from statista Almost 13,000 Ukrainian citizens killed by Russian attacks, and more than 30,000 injured.

This month’s Russian attacks come at a time when Trump’s government says to end the war. Trump does that with the Russians through bilateral ‘negotiations’, but in the meantime the war has only been increased further. There is a ceasefire on the Black Sea, but there had hardly been any maritime war for months. The status of the agreements on the sparse of each other’s energy facilities has never become clear.

Russians ‘Spotting’ the US

By increasing the attacks on citizens in the middle of Trumps ‘peace process’, the Russians are ridiculing the American goodwill, said Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski Monday morning in Luxembourgwhere he met with his EU colleagues to talk about, among other things, the defense of Ukraine against such Russian attacks. “A month ago, Ukraine unconditionally agreed to a ceasefire. The horrible attacks on Kryvy Rih and Soemy are the mocking response from Russia.”

In recent months, the Russians seem to feel strengthened in their war against Ukraine, now that Washington often sounds the same rhetoric as from Moscow, the aggressor in this war. The Pro-Russian American attitude gives new food to Ukrainian and Western distrust of Washington and Moscow every day.

Even though the US President Moscow has threatened a number of times with sanctions such as Putin does not sincerely strive for sustainable peace, Trump leaves it so far in threats. And the Kremlin feels that flawlessly, wrote an American columnist At the end of last month: “Putin plays Trump like a Stradivarius.”

For example, under the Ukrainian allies last week did not go unnoticed that Trumps special envoy for Russia, Steve Witkoff, during a visit to the Kremlin his hand pressed on his heart Before he shook Putin’s hand for a long time, the president who is searched for by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

‘Occupied regions for Moscow’

According to Witkoff A ceasefire in Ukraine is reached the fastest when Russia gets the four Ukrainian regions that now partially occupies it: Cherson, Zaporizja, Donetsk and Loehansk. With that, Russia would be de facto rewarded for the massive invasion of 2022, it sounds in Kyiv and other European capitals. In fact, Moscow would get through a diplomatic route, what it was not able to conquer after eleven years of war. The Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia already occupied and annexed in 2014, no longer seems like a topic of conversation for Washington.

While almost all European leaders sharply condemn the Russian attacks on Ukraine in Germany, the button seems to be handling when it comes to the delivery of heavier weapons to Ukraine. After Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to deliver the German Taurus rocket for years for fear of escalation of the war, his successor Friedrich Merz seems to want to provide the weapon to Ukraine.

Merz, who will take over the Chancellor next month, called the Russian attack on Soemy on Sunday a “deliberate and calculated war crime.” He regards the Russian attack as “Putin’s answer” on conversations about a ceasefire, and believes that Kyiv should be helped to “move forward” in the war.

There belongs according to Merz Also the Taurus rocket. He referred to the British and the French who have been supplying cruise missiles to Ukraine for several years, with a range of about 250 kilometers. The range of the Taurus rocket is twice as large. “We have to agree together. If that happens, then Germany must participate.”

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