European and British leaders are using the Sumy airstrike to push for the war in Ukraine to continue

Too many civilians have died in Ukraine since 2014 and they should instead push for genuine negotiations to end the war

The Sumy airstrike provides a reminder that civilians and children have been killed indiscriminately since the Ukraine crisis started in 2014. Rather than calling on Russia to accept a ceasefire on Ukraine’s terms and encouraging Zelensky to avoid dialogue, European and British leaders need to get behind real negotiations.

On 13 April, a Russian airstrike in the centre of Sumy in Ukraine lead to the deaths of 35 people and injury to 117 others, including children. The strike appears to have targeted a planned medal award ceremony organised by the Ukraine Armed Forces’ 117^th Air Defence Brigade, although the vast majority of the casualties were civilians.

The decision to plan a military event in a built up city centre has prompted internal concern within Ukraine that this invited a Russian attack. A Mayor of one town in Sumy called on the Governor and the regional head of Ukrainian Military intelligence to resign, for organising a military event in a civilian area.

This cannot justify the Russian airstrike. Russian military bloggers have admitted that the second of two ballistic missiles used did not hit the intended target, causing widespread casualties.

But there was also a depressing sense of déjà vu in this latest tragedy. In an Amnesty International report of 4 August 2022, six months after the war started, the Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, remarked ‘we have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas.’

The strike in Sumy offers a timely reminder that civilians have regularly been caught in the cross-fire of a conflict in Ukraine that has been burning since 2014. Over 15,000 civilians have been killed during that eleven-year period, 3000 of those in the years of 2014 and 2015, as part of Ukraine’s so-called Anti-Terror Operation against the separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk.

The first official record of civilian deaths in the Ukraine conflict was in a report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission on 5 July, which said, ‘the military campaign of the Ukrainian army in the east of the country continued.. The UN stated that there were numerous reports of death of people due to the intensified security operations in Donetsk and Luhansk, including a killing of a five-year-old girl.’

A 2016 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke about ‘rampant impunity’ within the Ukrainian anti-terror offensive across the period from 2014-2015, with ‘90 per cent of the conflict related civilian deaths.. caused by the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas.’ The remaining deaths were mostly caused by summary executions by groups on both sides of the conflict.

15,000 civilian deaths across eleven years is an appalling number. But that number pales against the more than one million total deaths and injuries to military personnel on both sides during the war, each one the child of someone.

Everyone should be striving with every sinew to end this needless bloodshed and finally bring peace. But they are not.

Performative accusations against Russia by the western media and politicians create an epic distraction from the real issue; that this would not be happening if there was peace between Russia and Ukraine.

A new propaganda narrative has formed that in this war, Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. This is both a gross over-simplification and wilfully ignores Ukraine’s role as the other party to the war. It also infantilises casual western consumers of the mainstream news who, stripped of real information and analysis of the history of the conflict, are invited to accept the premise that Ukrainians are the good guys, and the Russians are the bad guys. That this is a fight between the righteous and the wicked. Between David and Goliath.

Antony Blinken, the grossly complicit former US Secretary of State, recently repeated this good versus evil line in an interview. But, when you look at it from the other perspective, you might realise that Russia considers NATO Goliath, and itself David.

Ursula von Der Leyen, took to X after the attack in Sumy to amplify this attack line. ‘Russia was and remains the aggressor.’ She goes on to assert that, ‘Europe will continue to.. maintain strong pressure on Russia until the bloodshed ends and a just and lasting peace is achieved, on Ukraine’s terms and conditions.’ Prime Minister Keir Starmer posted on X that ‘Putin must now agree to a fully and immediate ceasefire without conditions.’

But this is deluded. Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield and has been for at least a year and a half. There is no rational world in which Russia will be pressured to accept a ceasefire on Ukraine’s terms. And Russia has conditions, the biggest one that Ukraine repudiate its claim to NATO membership. This has been the case, not since 2022, not since 2014, but since 2008.

A ceasefire will only happen when Ukraine engages in direct talks with Russia, something that President Zelensky steadfastly refuses to do. Calling for more pressure on Russia, and discouraging Zelensky from dialogue, is just delaying an end to hostilities and consigning more innocent people to die.

The EU and Britain, which have both avoided at all costs sending troops to fight, can’t produce enough weapons and are fast running out of money to support Ukraine’s failing state, are encouraging Zelensky to press for something that President Putin will never accept.

President Trump – with whom I disagree deeply on middle-east policy and on tariffs - has been measured in his response, referring to the Russian airstrike in Sumy as a mistake. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also balanced in his statement, pointing out that, ‘this is a tragic reminder of why President Trump and his Administration are putting so much time and effort into trying to end this war and achieve a just and durable peace.’

What happened in Sumy on a Palm Sunday devoted to religious commemoration, was a tragedy. Russia was at fault for the missile strike. But when innocent children are dying, we should all feel ashamed.

Rather than falling back on the same old performative tropes and failed prescriptions, European and British leaders finally need to get behind ending the bloodshed. They must encourage Zelensky to negotiate, rather than humouring him with assurances that won’t reassure, and with promises we’ll never keep.