Ukraine talks hang on Russia’s Palm Sunday missile strike

Ukraine accused Russia of committing a war crime after its missile strike on the town of Sumy on Palm Sunday. Kiev’s claim that Russia targeted churchgoers was echoed by Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg. Trump also chimed in and said, “I was told they (Russia) made a mistake, it was terrible.”

The Russian Defense Ministry insisted that it targeted “a meeting of the command staff of the Seversk operational-tactical group”, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later claimed was attended by NATO servicemen.

A debate is now raging over whether the attack was a war crime, as Ukraine claimed, a terrible mistake like Trump said, or a legitimate strike, as Russia insists.

Ukraine’s claim is aimed at further rallying the West to apply more pressure on Trump to pull the US out of its talks with Russia. Claiming that Russia deliberately targeted churchgoers on Palm Sunday is meant to make it more difficult for the talks to continue and for Trump to meet Putin.

As for Trump’s explanation of events, he wasn’t going to discredit himself by denying that it took place, but he also didn’t want to fall into Ukraine’s trap of lending credence to its war crime claim.

That’s why he instead opted for the middle ground of acknowledging what happened but attributing it to some vague “mistake” by Russia, such as a wayward missile or faulty intelligence. Trump can’t approve of any Russian strike that causes civilian casualties, but he also won’t let such attacks ruin their ongoing talks either.

Russia’s explanation maintains the country’s integrity by insisting that the targets were legitimate, though it also accounts for the reported civilian casualties by claiming Ukraine employs de facto human shields by illegally deploying military assets in civilian areas.

While critics might scoff at this version of the attack, it has been lent credence by the mayor of nearby Konotop, who declared on video that the regional military governor “organized an award ceremony for the soldiers of the 117th brigade” that day.

He also said that civilians were invited to attend the event, which he claimed that the regional military governor was earlier warned not to hold, presumably due to the risk of a Russian strike.

This additional information, which is omitted from many of the mainstream media reports about Palm Sunday’s missile strike, contextualizes Russia’s decision-making process and the reported civilian casualties.

Accordingly, from Russia’s perspective, it was neither a war crime nor a terrible mistake but a legitimate strike.

To elaborate, the regional military governor likely thought that inviting civilians to attend an award ceremony for the soldiers that he decided to host inside the city would deter Russia. Yet Russia’s cost-benefit analysis was different than what he expected.

From Russia’s perspective, taking out those VIP military targets at the possible cost of some civilian casualties could hasten the end of the conflict, thus ultimately saving more civilians in the long run than if the conflict continued.

Moreover, observers should remember that Russia has the international legal right to strike military targets anywhere in Ukraine, while Ukraine has the international legal responsibility not to deploy military assets in civilian areas.

For whatever one might think about the morality of Russia’s decision-making process, it was the regional military governor who irresponsibly assembled this legitimate target in Sumy, which he then surrounded with de facto human shields in a failed attempt to deter Russia.

The attack was also undertaken to help push Ukraine out of the rest of the neighboring Kursk Region since the targets that had assembled in Sumy were reportedly directly responsible for the invasion of Russian territory. Fully removing Ukraine’s forces from Kursk is a Russian prerequisite to any cessation of hostilities.

From Ukraine’s perspective, the civilian casualties caused by the collateral damage from the strike serve as the perfect pretext for rallying the West against the Russia-US talks, which takes on an even greater urgency considering the consequences that this strike had on Ukraine’s operations in Kursk.

If Ukraine is soon pushed out of this entire region as a result, then Russia might expand its counteroffensive into Sumy in order to pressure Kyiv into complying with Moscow’s peace demands.

Ukraine obviously wants to prevent this, to which end it believes that rallying the West could help, especially if the media optics of the strike complicate the Russia-US talks. The timing also couldn’t have been more opportune for Kyiv since Putin will have to decide by Friday (April 18) whether or not to extend the lopsided “energy ceasefire” with Ukraine. If he opts against right after the Palm Sunday missile strike, then Ukraine might more easily rally the West against Russia.

Nevertheless, Trump might not be pressured to pull the US out of talks with Russia nor pass along more arms to Ukraine, at least judging by what he said on Monday. 

According to Trump, “[Zelensky is] always looking to purchase missiles. When you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war. You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

These aren’t the words of a leader interested in further perpetuating the Ukraine conflict. With that in mind, Ukraine is unlikely to get what it wants from exploiting the incident.

That’s seen in Trump choosing the middle ground of attributing what happened to some vague “mistake” instead of taking either Ukraine or Russia’s side on the issue. For the time being, the peace process will, therefore, probably remain on track. But it will still likely take some time before any major agreement is reached.