On April 13, 2025, the people of Sumy gathered in reverent celebration. It was Palm Sunday—a moment steeped in quiet faith, ritual, and the shared memory of resilience. Children clutched willow branches in place of palms, choirs filled modest chapels with ancient hymns, and families paused amid war to observe a tradition older than any of them.
And then the sky cracked open.
Two Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles struck Sumy’s city center with merciless precision. A trolleybus, filled with ordinary people going about their sacred day, was obliterated. A university conference hall—hardly a symbol of warfare—was reduced to smoking rubble. In an instant, 34 lives were extinguished, among them two children. More than a hundred others were injured. The scenes that followed were not of celebration, but of blood, ash, and sirens.
There was no military installation, no strategic objective. Only civilians. Only lives.
The timing was no accident. This was not a strike amid war—it was an act of deliberate desecration, timed to shatter a holy day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his voice heavy with restrained fury, called it what it was: terrorism, calculated and chilling.
Condemnation rang swiftly from Ukraine’s allies. French President Emmanuel Macron lamented the “cynicism” of the attack, declaring it a brutal insult to every attempt at peace. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the strike as barbarism laid bare. “How,” he asked, “can anyone speak of diplomacy with a regime that targets prayer?”
Indeed, just days before, American envoy Steve Witkoff had met with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg to discuss the remote possibility of a settlement. That discussion now rings hollow, mocked by the plumes of smoke rising over Sumy.
We are left, once again, with the stark and bitter truth: this is not simply a war of territory, but of cruelty. A war that strikes not only at cities and soldiers, but at memory, at meaning, at the human spirit.
And yet, the people of Sumy did not flee from their churches. In the aftermath, as dust settled on shattered altars, candles were relit. Songs were sung. Prayers continued.
Because even amid atrocity, faith endures. Even amid ruin, Ukraine resists.
