Two consecutive Russian attacks on a medical center in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least nine people on Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials reported.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the first strike killed one person. Russia then attacked again while patients and staff were being evacuated, resulting in additional casualties. Sumy’s City Military administration confirmed that twelve other people were wounded in the attacks.
Local officials in Sumy stated that Shahed drones were used in the assault. The city, located approximately 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Russia’s Kursk region, has seen increased military activity since August 6, when Ukrainian troops were deployed there in an effort to divert the Kremlin’s military focus from the main front line in Ukraine.
The attack on Sumy was part of a broader overnight assault by Russian forces. Ukraine’s air force reported shooting down 69 of 73 Russian drones launched overnight, as well as two of four missiles. In Kyiv, city authorities said about 15 drones were intercepted over the capital and its outskirts.
In Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, local officials announced on Saturday that a man’s body was recovered from the rubble of an administrative building hit by a Russian missile on Friday. This discovery raised the death toll from that attack to four.
The conflict has also seen continued attacks on Russian territory. The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Saturday that air defenses had intercepted four Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region and one over the Kursk region, both bordering Ukraine.
In the Russian border city of Shebekino, Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said one person was killed and two others were wounded in Ukrainian shelling on Saturday.
