The head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration (RMA) Volodymyr Artyukh, actually admitted that on April 13, the day of the Russian attack on Sumy, there was an award ceremony for military personnel in the city.
In a comment to Suspilne, the head of the Regional Military Administration said that he did not initiate the event, he was invited there.
At the same time, Artyukh did not answer the question of who exactly invited him.
“I didn’t initiate it. I was just invited there.”
“Who invited you?”
“That’s another question. I answered you [for your first one].”
What preceded
Russian occupiers attacked Sumy with two “Iskander-M/KN-23” ballistic missiles on the afternoon of April 13, killing 35 people and wounding 117.
After that, MP Maryana Bezuhla claimed that the attack was carried out on a military formation, without specifying which unit was involved.
Later, the mayor of Konotop Artem Semenikhin stated that the head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration Volodymyr Artyukh, organized the awarding ceremony for the 117th brigade of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in Sumy on that day. Artyukh was allegedly warned not to line up, but he ignored the warning. Semenikhin claims that the servicemen were not injured by the Russian ballistic missile strike because they were in cover.
Semenikhin says that law enforcement officers have opened a criminal case into this fact to find out who initiated the formation of the military in the city center 30 kilometers from the front line. According to him, the situation is personally controlled by the head of SBU Vasyl Malyuk.
- A few hours before these accusations, Artem Semenikhin demanded that the head of the Sumy RMA Volodymyr Artyukh, and the head of the regional SBU department Oleh Krasnoshapka, resign due to their alleged involvement in the Russian shelling of Sumy. At the same time, he promised to tell "what happened" if the officials did not resign by 6:00 p.m.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.