Two children among 10 killed in Russian missile strike on Sumy

KYIV: Two children were among 10 people killed on Sunday when a Russian missile hit a residential building in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said, while another missile strike left the region’s administrative centre without power.

Fifty-five people, including eight children, were also injured when the Russian missile hit the nine-storey building in the city, the city council of Sumy said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Sunday evening for the city of Sumy became hell, a tragedy that Russia brought to our land,” Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Sumy military administration said in a post on the administration’s Telegram messaging channel.

The military administration said another missile hit critical infrastructure, leaving the city without power.

Rescuers and all necessary services continued to work at the scene and psychologists were providing assistance to those affected, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on Telegram.

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More than 400 people were evacuated, the Service added.

Photographs posted on Telegram by State Emergency Service of Ukraine showed firefighters battling a blaze consuming cars and rescuers carrying people out of a building. One image showed a multi-storey building with nearly all windows blown out and its facade damaged.

Reuters was able to independently verify the location with the outline, position and design of the buildings that match the file and satellite imagery of the area. Reuters was able to confirm the date with corroborating reports of the local prosecutor and emergency services.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes on each other’s territory. But thousands have died since early 2022 in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.

The attack on Sumy followed a morning of Russia pounding Ukraine’s power grid in what Kyiv said was a “massive” attack with 120 missiles and 90 drones that killed at least seven people.

Ukraine to face power cuts on Monday after Russian air strike