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00:00And for more, let's cross to Sumy and correspondent Gulliver Craig.
00:06Gulliver, tell us the latest where you are.
00:10Well, I think it's important to comment on these Russian allegations that there was a gathering of military top brass
00:18and that Ukraine is using civilians as human shields.
00:21If you remember, they made very similar allegations concerning the attack on Krivirig 10 days ago,
00:26which also killed a large number of civilians and where they also used cluster munitions.
00:30In that particular case, we were able to prove using CCTV footage that there was no gathering of soldiers
00:36in the restaurant that Russia said it had targeted.
00:40This time, it's a little bit different.
00:42There was apparently a very small gathering, not more than 20 people that was very discreet.
00:47They were in civilian clothes.
00:49It was happening in the Congress Hall, which is one of the buildings of the university,
00:52which is basically sort of campus behind me.
00:54There are various buildings there.
00:55They were in the basement.
00:57None of the people who were participating in the meeting were hurt.
01:01And so the Ukrainians, and there's been a lot of discussion about this in Ukraine,
01:05with some opposition Ukrainian politicians, you know, accusing the military of being irresponsible.
01:10And the discussion has really come to the conclusion that that cannot possibly have been an excuse
01:15for using cluster munitions on a crowded city center,
01:18especially as the second hit hit nearly 200 meters away from that Congress Hall where this meeting was taking place.
01:26And so the allegation that Ukraine is using civilians as human shields when all they're doing is going about their daily lives on Palm Sunday,
01:34when spring has finally arrived, is, of course, something that sticks in the craw of Ukrainians.
01:38They very, very much hope that the Western allies, and Donald Trump in particular, will not believe this and will stop taking Russia's word for things.
01:48Some people here I've spoken to today admit the possibility that it may have been a mistake,
01:52that Russia may have had false intelligence.
01:54Most seem to think it was a deliberate targeting of civilians, and then they just looked for a pretext for it.
02:01But all said that either way, whatever the reason they targeted this area on this particular day,
02:06nothing excuses using cluster munitions and detonating them above, before they hit the ground,
02:11you know, to spread over the widest area possible on the center of a regional capital.
02:16And again, it's two missiles in succession, Gulliver.
02:19Yeah, a few minutes apart, it was the second one, which is the one that I know for sure the second one had cluster munitions in.
02:29There's some doubt about whether the first one did.
02:31It was the second one that did the more damage.
02:33It hit the crossroads behind me where cleanup operations are ongoing.
02:37I'm not allowed to go any closer because there's big vehicles at work.
02:40Earlier today, we were able to wander around the whole area and film a lot there.
02:45There's blood on the floor, on the tarmac.
02:49I mean, you can see evidence of the carnage, though I suppose less and less,
02:53because the cleanup operation here is really extraordinary.
02:56How many people, including local volunteers, mobilize and get to work as fast as possible to clean up their city center,
03:04which is, you know, a historic area of the city.
03:06It's also got, you know, symbolic value, apart from the tragedy of so many lives being lost.
03:12I think you said the death toll has now climbed to 35 because one of the injured people sadly died.
03:1712, so I guess it's 11 now, thought to be in a critical condition still.
03:22Among the dead, there are two children as well.
03:24And you're very, just to remind our viewers once again, Gulliver, you're very close to the Russian border where you are.
03:30And Sumi is often getting hit in recent weeks, though more often it's not the city center, but targets outside the city.
03:40And quite often it's military targets that we're not allowed to go and film.
03:43But there was actually a strike today.
03:44There was an explosion in the afternoon.
03:46People were outside looking at billowing black smoke that we could see from the city center.
03:51It was some way out.
03:52I went there.
03:53The smoke had died down by the time I got there.
03:55Firefighters had obviously got the fires under control.
03:58I spoke to a medic there, a humanitarian volunteer.
04:02He told me that it was a garage, basically a car repair center, also perhaps a long-term parking lot.
04:10And the police there also told me that it was a civilian target.
04:15But I didn't have time to investigate further.
04:16I'm told that there were some people wounded but none killed, but that information has yet to be confirmed.
04:23So even today, while rescue workers and cleanup workers were hard at work here in the city center, there was another strike on the city's outskirts.
04:30Gulliver Craig reporting live from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumi.
04:36Many thanks for that update.
04:38For more, we're going to turn to a man who's been there quite a bit, French independent war reporter Cyril Amorsky.
04:45Thanks for being with us here on France.
04:46Thank you for the invitation.
04:47Let's go back to what was been said in the last hours from the Kremlin.
04:51I believe we can listen to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, with his version of what happened.
05:02Facts about who was there at the facility which has been hit in Sumi.
05:06There was yet another mob-up of the Ukrainian military commanders and their Western colleagues, disguised as mercenaries, or I do not know what.
05:18All right, talking about Western mercenaries, he pointed to a New York Times article that talks about how there are Western military instructors that help in the firing of missiles for the Ukrainians.
05:33What's this counter-narrative, your reaction to it?
05:37Well, first of all, there were no foreigners during this ceremony.
05:41It's true that it was actually an award ceremony that was organized in front of that building that got struck.
05:48And the thing is, the Ukrainians made the mistake to even organize this event publicly.
05:53Because usually you have to organize these events somewhere underground, not in a public space, because you know that, first of all, it is a danger for you as a soldier, but it's also a danger for the other people around you.
06:04That said, still, it is a war crime because the Russians are not even allowed, first of all, to invade Ukraine, to attack Ukraine.
06:10And they knew that if they would use missiles, like the ones that they used, Iskandar M missiles, with cluster munitions, that they would kill a lot of civilians.
06:20They struck the very center of the city.
06:23So it is true, some soldiers were there, they were supposed to get awards, but only two soldiers died.
06:29The commander of the 27th Brigade, it was announced publicly today that he did get killed indeed, and his driver, because they did not get into the shelter.
06:37All of the other soldiers, they got into the shelter.
06:40So when Russia says that over 60 soldiers died and some civilian casualties were also reported, it is not true.
06:46Only two soldiers died.
06:47The rest are civilians, and we know the numbers.
06:50People have been there, reported on that, and we all saw the images of the dead civilians on the ground who died because of the first strike on the trolleybus,
06:58and then a second strike about a minute later, again on the same place.
07:02Cyril, we played at the outset that clip of Donald Trump aboard Air Force One, saying that he was told the Russians had made a mistake in the last minutes.
07:12He's in the company of his El Salvadoran counterpart, said that Zelensky is always seeking to buy U.S. missiles, and some good proposals should come out soon on ending the Ukraine war.
07:27What was your reaction when you heard that clip of Donald Trump this morning?
07:30Well, that's the thing.
07:30One day he says that Moscow needs to get moving.
07:33On another day he says that it's Biden and Zelensky that are responsible for the war.
07:36Then he starts talking about the deal.
07:38Basically, what we see today from the U.S. administration is that there is no really interest for Ukraine.
07:43This is how Ukrainians feel.
07:45I'm not talking even about my own position.
07:46This is how Ukrainians feel.
07:47This is what Ukrainians say.
07:49If you take a look about all of the ceasefire deals that we have started talking about about a month ago, what has changed?
07:55There's no ceasefire.
07:56Russia has never accepted any ceasefire deal.
07:58What is the U.S.'s reaction?
08:00What is the U.S.'s reaction after the strike on Sumy?
08:02What is the U.S.'s reaction after the strike on Kriberich?
08:05So when we see all of that, we see that clearly, unfortunately, today's U.S. administration is mostly siding with Russia.
08:12We see that they want to normalize economical and financial relationships with Russia.
08:17And we see that, unfortunately, they're not doing much to put pressure on Russia.
08:21They do put pressure on Ukraine because it's easier to do so.
08:24They know that Ukraine rely partially on USAID, but they don't do it on Russia.
08:29So when Ukrainians see all of that, first of all, they are scandalized to see that the leaders of the free world are using such words, are using such a rhetoric.
08:38And second of all, they do not believe that, unfortunately, it is possible to talk to Russia and that it's possible to get a ceasefire anytime soon.
08:44Because we see that since the ceasefire talk started, the situation in Ukraine got even worse.
08:49For the past month, strikes have only increased, increased and increased.
08:53And what's the mood, how's the mood changed since January 20th inside of Ukraine?
08:58Well, if you take a look at the polls right before Donald Trump became president, he was pretty popular in Ukraine.
09:04Because Ukrainians believed, and it was a poll, I think, that was made around the beginning of the new year of 2025.
09:11Ukrainians said that, yes, Trump can maybe put an end to the war because they wanted to believe in his rhetoric.
09:16I mean, it was one of his main campaign points.
09:18I'm going to end the war in 24 hours.
09:20Well, it's going to be three months soon that he's president, about 100 days that he's going to be president really soon.
09:26What has changed?
09:27Nothing.
09:27The only thing that happened is that basically there's a ceasefire that is being respected in the Black Sea.
09:32But the only country that is benefiting from it is Russia, because it's the only country who has military real targets that are there.
09:39So nothing has really changed.
09:41And if we take a look at the Ukrainian sentiment, I can tell you for sure, and we have seen quite a few polls,
09:46showing that the Ukrainians are extremely skeptical of the new U.S. administration and they do not trust Donald Trump and his team at all.
09:54That is a reality, and it has changed dramatically.
09:56Let's talk about French public sentiment, because we've seen that since Trump's inauguration and the statements he's made about Ukraine,
10:04generally, poll after poll shows, the French support Emmanuel Macron's position of strategic autonomy.
10:12Are you surprised by that?
10:14Not really.
10:15I think that today, the narrative, and in a sense, the discourse, the public discourse, the public image,
10:20is really changing on the war regarding Ukraine.
10:23I think that even from the very beginning, there was a lot of support to Ukraine.
10:27About two-thirds of the French population really strongly supported Ukraine.
10:30It has changed time to time, because people were tired, because, you know, it's really tough as well to keep up with the news for three years regarding one and same conflict.
10:39But today, we see that the French president has changed his discourse dramatically as well.
10:44If we take a look at 2022, initially, he said that we should respect Russia and that we should not humiliate the country.
10:51Today, we see that the president has changed the rhetoric dramatically.
10:54He has said that Russia is a threat.
10:56And I think, to this day, it's one of the only European leaders who has changed such a rhetoric.
11:01He has explained it.
11:01He has taken concrete examples.
11:03And if we take a look at what's happening in France, it's true.
11:06If you take a look at, for example, some of the Jewish stars, David stars, that were painted on some doors in the Paris region,
11:12well, it was a Russian operation.
11:15If you take a look at, for example, some coffins that were dropped in front of the Eiffel Tower a few months ago,
11:21it was also organized by the Russians.
11:22And even worse, there was an attack that was planned against Abri Korama, so a huge, huge storm that was supposed to happen in the city of Orly.
11:31It did not happen because it was intercepted by the French police, but it was also organized and commended by the Russian government.
11:37And when the French public sees all of these things, when the French public learns about these things,
11:41and Macron also participates in that, well, of course, the public opinion is more in favor of Ukraine.
11:48And finally, because France understands that the security of France in Europe depends on Ukraine's security.
11:54Cyril Amorsky, you're a frontline reporter.
11:56We've seen the big story on the battlefield the last month, is the Ukrainians getting pushed out of that territory.
12:03They grabbed in the hopes of being able to leverage it inside of Russian territory in Korsk for the most part.
12:09What happens next? Is it in that region?
12:14And this is, by the way, not very far from the city of Sumy.
12:17I think this is the most important question today.
12:19When we take a look at the situation in Ukraine, we all know that the situation in the Donetsk region is pretty tough.
12:25There's nothing new about that.
12:26But when it comes to the north of Ukraine, as you mentioned, most of the territory that Ukraine controlled in the Korsk region of Russia,
12:33it was about 1,000 kilometers.
12:35Now, 90% of that was taken back by the Russians.
12:39So Ukrainians control about 100 kilometers, square kilometers of the area.
12:43Now that the Russians are even closer to the Ukrainian border, and now that they have between 65,000 to 80,000 soldiers,
12:49as a soldier told me, a person who was pretty high up in the 80th brigade, he asked me a simple question.
12:57Why would Russia not attack if they have that many people today at the border?
13:01It is simply strategically interesting and important for them to do such an attack.
13:05They now have all of the troops necessary to start an incursion like they did, for example, in May of last year in the Kharkiv region.
13:12And it was believed, by the way, back at the time, that they might do something similar in the Sumy region.
13:17But the Korsk Corporation can't solve these plans.
13:19Today, now that the Ukrainians came back to the Ukrainian border, and that we have tens of thousands of Russian soldiers,
13:28it seems almost inevitable that a new operation will start in the area, just like it did in 2022.
13:34And when you talk to people in Sumy, when you talk to people who are in this area, in this region,
13:39sometimes people who live in villages that are only two, three kilometers away from the border,
13:43they all fear this is going to be their new reality really soon.
13:46Not only the cities are going to be bombarded and destroyed, but also Russia may launch an incursion,
13:52and the military seems to believe in that as well.
13:54Cyril Amorsky, many thanks for being with us here on France.
13:56Thank you for the invitation once again.