In the Ukrainian city of Sumy, life goes on despite the constant threat of attack

SUMY, Ukraine (AP) — The humdrum of daily life in Sumy belies the constant threat of death its people have lived with since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago.

Days after Russia targeted the city's center in back-to-back missile strikes, killing 35 people and injuring more than 100 others in the deadliest attack on Ukrainian civilians this year, neighbors gossiped in front of their apartment block as children played soccer in the courtyard. They paused to look up only when hearing the buzzing of attack drones and familiar thud of Ukrainian air defenses before resuming what they were doing.

Sumy is only about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border of Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian soldiers are defending the last sliver of territory they took in a surprise offensive last summer. Residents say there has been an uptick in attacks on Sumy in recent weeks, though none as bloody as Sunday's airstrike, which targeted a busy intersection.

The attack in Sumy, which had a prewar population of about 250,000, came just over a week after a Russian missile strike killed about 20 people, including nine children, in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. Russia said it was targeting a meeting of soldiers, but there is no evidence to support the claim.

The attacks on their cities has left many Ukrainians wondering where the next will occur and cast a shadow over the ongoing ceasefire talks being brokered by the United States. The talks have produced only muted results, as Russia insists on conditions Ukraine deems impossible and Kyiv believes Moscow's forces are gearing up for a fresh offensive.

To the people of Sumy, the talks seem far-removed from their daily struggles.

As some of the victims of Sunday's attack were laid to rest on Tuesday, Viktor Voitenko, 56, described how he ended up paralyzed in a hospital bed. He was working as a security guard when the second missile hit and shattered his spine. As he spoke, his wife Hanna, 40, lovingly applied his deodorant — a simple act he could no longer perform.

Mention of the ceasefire negotiations conjured a weary smile from her. “It’s empty talks. They don’t move anywhere. It seems to be public relations to me,” Hanna Voitenko said. “Nothing happens to bring comfort to regular people.”

Her husband offered his own take: “They are stalling for time.”

Work, errands and planned family visits brought the victims of Sunday’s attack to the intersection of Petropavlivska Street and the state university on Sunday morning.

Asia Pohorila, 20, was working at a cafe and thinking about whether to buy pastries after her shift when the first missile strike left her in shock and bleeding profusely from her legs. On Tuesday, the times “10:20” and "10:23" were still scrawled in marker on her thighs, noting when medics applied tourniquets to them.

Maryna Illiashenko and her 13-year old son, Kyrylo, heard the sound of that first blast ricochet across the center city as they waited for a bus.

They were headed to visit his grandmother, but the teenager was more excited about wrestling practice later that afternoon. Undeterred, they boarded the bus when it arrived a few minutes later. One stop later, the second missile crashed a few feet from the vehicle, scorching nearby cars, burning passengers alive, killing the bus driver and causing shrapnel to rain down. Three fragments tore through Kyrylo’s scalp and scratched Maryna’s face.

Enveloped in smoke and debris, the teen leaped out of the shattered bus window and pried open the locked door from outside, saving half a dozen trapped passengers, witnesses said.

“I don’t want to think about this as a new type of reality for Sumy city. We can clearly see that our frontline cities are being erased,” Oleh Strilka, a spokesperson for the city's State Emergency Service, said while standing outside the collapsed facade of the university building, where the second missile struck.

“The most painful thing for me is our children. Why do they need to suffer?” he asked. “I don’t want our 13-year-old kids becoming heroes.”

Liudmyla Shelukhina, 70, was waiting in a neighbor’s house for a haircut. She was standing in line in the kitchen when the windows suddenly shattered.

She said the fridge she was next to saved her life. “I would have been decapitated."

“Don’t be so dramatic,” joked her husband, Viktor, a former soldier. Their son was hospitalized in the attack.

Rescue workers like Dmytro Shevchenko, 31, have to be prepared to head to the scene of the next attack at all times. He was among the first to arrive at the university grounds on Sunday. Most people he found were too badly injured to help, he said, wiping away tears.

He holds on to little hope that ceasefire talks will bear fruit. “I just don’t believe in it,” he said.

The children’s hospital where Kyrylo Illiashenko is recovering bears the scars of repeated drone attacks. More than 100 windows were shattered only two weeks ago when a massive drone attack struck nearby, said Chief Dr. Ihor Zmislya.

As workers cleared rubble from the sites of the missile strikes Tuesday and Kyrylo expounded on his favorite computer games, an explosion sounded in the distance. From the teen's hospital window, plumes of smoke could be seen rising from a nearby railway line.

“This is our reality,” said Zmislya. “It happens all the time.”

A rescue worker rests near university building destroyed by a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Smoke rises from an explosion following a Russian drone strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman cleans her window after a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Volodymyr Hordiienko)

Kateryna Sitak, 23, a teacher, cries after laying flowers and toys on a site of a Russian missile strike in Sumy, Ukraine, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Rescue workers clear the rubble of a university building destroyed by a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A dead body lies on the ground after a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Volodymyr Hordiienko)

Mother Natalia says goodbye to her daughter Olena Kohut, an orchestra musician who was killed in a deadly Palm Sunday Russian attack on Sumy on April 13, during a farewell ceremony in Sumy, Ukraine, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Dr. Oleksandr Zaitsev treats a patient injured in a deadly Palm Sunday Russian attack on Sumy on April 13, at a hospital ICU in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Hennadii Smolarov, 73, injured in a deadly Palm Sunday Russian attack on Sumy on April 13, lies on a bed at a hospital in Sumy, Ukraine,Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A man cries as he leans on the bus that was hit by a Russian missile on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Volodymyr Hordiienko)

Dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Volodymyr Hordiienko)

Women put flowers on a site of a Russian missile strike in Sumy, Ukraine, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Asia Pohorila, 20, injured in a deadly Palm Sunday Russian attack on Sumy on April 13, lies on a bed at a hospital in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Hanna seeks to her husband Victor Voitenko, injured in a deadly Palm Sunday Russian attack on Sumy on April 13, at a hospital in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Kyrylo Illiashenko, 13, sits on a hospital bed, Monday, April 14, 2025, after being injured on Sunday by a Russian missile strike on Sumy, Ukraine, while trying to help others evacuate a burning bus that he later exited through a shattered window. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

U.S. forces have boarded another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The announcement was made Friday by the U.S. military. The Trump administration has been targeting sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.

The pre-dawn action was carried out by U.S. Marines and Navy, taking part in the monthslong buildup of forces in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Southern Command, which declared “there is no safe haven for criminals” as it announced the seizure of the vessel called the Olina.

Navy officials couldn’t immediately provide details about whether the Coast Guard was part of the force that took control of the vessel as has been the case in the previous seizures. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard said there was no immediate comment on the seizure.

The Olina is the fifth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of a broader effort by Trump’s administration to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.

The latest:

Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, says a documentary film about first lady Melania Trump will make its premiere later this month, posting a trailer on X.

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Melania Trump also released a self-titled memoir in late 2024.

Some artists have canceled scheduled Kennedy Center performances after a newly installed board voted to add President Donald Trump’s to the facility, prompting Grenell to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says that she has asked her foreign affairs secretary to reach out directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump regarding comments by the American leader that the U.S. cold begin ground attacks against drug cartels.

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As she has on previous occasions, Sheinbaum downplayed the remarks, saying “it is part of his way of communicating.” She said she asked her Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente to strengthen coordination with the U.S.

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“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.

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Since a U.S. military raid captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has said there’s a new opportunity to use the country’s oil to keep gasoline prices low.

The full list of executives invited to the meeting has not been disclosed, but Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend.

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The Trump administration has cited concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families and their children. California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York states filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit asks the courts to order the administration to release the funds. The attorneys general have called the funding freeze an unconstitutional abuse of power.

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Iranian state television reported the comments from Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Friday. They came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Trump’s support for the protesters, calling Trump’s hands “stained with the blood of Iranians.”

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December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November.

The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

FILE - President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)