Russia on Monday claimed its deadly missile attack on Ukraine’s Sumy that killed and wounded scores including children had targeted a gathering of Ukrainian troops, while European leaders condemned the attack as a war crime.

Ukrainian officials have said two ballistic missiles on Palm Sunday morning hit the heart of Sumy, a city about 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Russia, killing at least 34, including two children, and wounding 119. It was the second large-scale attack to claim civilian lives in Ukraine in just over a week.

Asked about the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s military only strikes military targets. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strike targeted a gathering of senior military officers and accused Kyiv of using civilians as shields by holding military meetings in the city’s center.

The ministry claimed to kill over 60 troops. Russia gave no evidence to back its claims.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a global response to the attack, saying the first strike hit university buildings and the second exploded above street level. “Only real pressure on Russia can stop this. We need tangible sanctions against those sectors that finance the Russian killing machine,” he wrote Monday on social media.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called the attacks “Russia’s mocking answer” to Kyiv’s agreement to a ceasefire proposed by the U.S. over a month ago.

“I hope that President Trump, the U.S. administration, see that the leader of Russia is mocking their goodwill, and I hope the right decisions are taken,” Sikorski told reporters in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers met.

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen noted that the attack on Sumy came shortly after President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Saint Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It demonstrates that “Russia shows full disregard for the peace process, but also that Russia has zero regard for human life,” Valtonen said.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kestutis Budrys, echoed Ukraine’s assertion that the Russian strike used cluster munitions to target civilians, calling it “a war crime by definition.” The Associated Press has been unable to verify that claim.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the attack shows that Putin has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire, and called for the European Union to “take the toughest sanctions against Russia to suffocate its economy and prevent it from fueling its war effort.”

The EU has imposed 16 rounds of sanctions on Russia and is working on a 17th, but the measures are getting harder to agree on because they also impact European economies.

Germany’s chancellor-designate, Friedrich Merz, described the Sumy attack as “a serious war crime” during an appearance on ARD television.

Merz made clear he stands by his past calls to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, something that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to do. He said the Ukrainian military needs to be able to “get ahead of the situation” and that any delivery of long-range missiles must be done in consultation with European partners.

Asked about Merz’s statement, the Kremlin spokesman said such a move would “inevitably lead only to further escalation of the situation around Ukraine,” telling reporters that “regrettably, European capitals aren’t inclined to search for ways to launch peace talks and are inclined instead to keep provoking the continuation of the war.”

Russian forces this month have dropped 2,800 air bombs on Ukraine and fired more than 1,400 strike drones and nearly 60 missiles of various types.

The attack on Sumy followed a April 4 missile strike on Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih that killed some 20 people, including nine children.

Trump has previously described the strike on Sumy as a “mistake.” On Monday, he said the mistake was allowing the war to start in the first place, criticizing former President Joe Biden, Zelenskyy and Putin.

“Biden could’ve stopped it and Zelenskyy could’ve stopped it and Putin should’ve never started it,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Everybody’s to blame.”

Late Sunday, Russian exploding drones attacked Odesa, injuring eight people. Regional head Oleh Kiper said a medical facility was among the buildings damaged.

Russia fired a total of 62 Shahed drones over Ukraine late Sunday and early Monday, Ukraine’s air force said, adding that 40 were destroyed and 11 others jammed.

India and China have held one round of talks on resuming direct passenger air services, but no dates have been fixed yet, New Delhi said on Monday, as relations continued to thaw five years after a deadly border clash.

The neighbours agreed in January to work on resolving trade and economic differences, in a move expected to boost their aviation sectors, particularly China’s, which has lagged behind other countries in rebounding from the Covid pandemic.

“The civil aviation ministry and our counterpart in China have had one round of meetings,” Civil Aviation Secretary Vumlunmang Vualnam said at a conference organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi.

There were still some issues to resolve, he added, without going into detail.

Relations soured between India and China in the wake of the 2020 clash between troops along their border in the Himalayas, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese.

India imposed restrictions on Chinese companies investing in the country, banned hundreds of popular apps and cut passenger routes, although direct cargo flights continued.

Relations have improved since an agreement in October to ease a military standoff on the mountainous border, the same month that President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks in Russia.

Iran and the United States began high-level talks in Oman on Saturday aimed at jump-starting negotiations over Tehran’s fast-advancing nuclear programme, with US President Donald Trump threatening military action if there is no deal.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was leading Iran’s delegation while the talks on the US side – the first during Trump’s tenure in the White House – were being handled by his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

“Indirect talks between Iran and the United States with the mediation of the Omani foreign minister have started,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei posted on X.

Each delegation had its separate room and would exchange messages via Oman’s foreign minister, Baghaei said.

“The focus of the talks will be de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions (against Iran) in exchange for controlling Iran’s nuclear programme,” an Omani source told Reuters.

Oman has long been an intermediary between Western powers and Iran, having brokered the release of several foreign citizens and dual nationals held by the Islamic Republic.

Tehran approached the talks warily, sceptical they could yield a deal and suspicious of Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it does not halt its escalating uranium enrichment programme – seen by the West as a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.

While each side has talked up the chances of some progress, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades and have not agreed on whether the talks will be face-to-face, as Trump demands, or indirect, as Iran wants.

Ahead of the start of the talks – the first between Iran and a Trump administration, including his first term in 2017-21 – Araqchi met with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in Muscat to present Tehran’s “key points and positions to be conveyed to the US side”, Iranian state media reported.

Signs of progress could help cool tensions in a region aflame since 2023 with wars in Gaza and Lebanon, missile fire between Iran and Israel, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and the overthrow of the government in Syria.

HIGH STAKES

However, failure would aggravate fears of a wider conflagration across a region that exports much of the world’s oil.

Tehran has cautioned neighbouring countries that have US bases that they would face “severe consequences” if they were involved in any US military attack on Iran.

“There is a chance for initial understanding on further negotiations if the other party (US) enters the talks with an equal stance,” Araqchi told Iranian TV.

He said it was too early to comment on the duration of the talks. “This is the first meeting, and in it, many fundamental and initial issues will be clarified,” Araqchi said, “including, whether there is sufficient will on both sides, then we will make a decision on a timeline.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on key state matters, has given Araqchi “full authority” for the talks, an Iranian official told Reuters.

Iran has ruled out negotiating its defence capabilities such as its ballistic missile programme.

Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons, but Western countries and Israel believe it is covertly trying to develop the means to build an atomic bomb.

They say Iran’s enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel source, has gone far beyond the requirements of a civilian energy programme and has produced stocks at a level of fissile purity close to those required in warheads.

Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Since then, Iran’s nuclear programme has leaped forward, including by enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, a technical step from the levels needed for a bomb.

Washington’s closest Middle East ally Israel, which regards Iran’s nuclear programme as an existential threat, has long threatened to attack Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Tehran’s influence throughout the Middle East has been severely curbed over the past 18 months, with its regional allies – known as the “Axis of Resistance” – either dismantled or badly damaged since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December.