Russian drones pound power system in Sumy region town, 14 people hurt,
Ukraine says
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[September 12, 2024]
KYIV (Reuters) - Russian drones inflicted significant
damage to the northern Ukrainian town of Konotop's energy infrastructure
in an overnight attack that injured at least 14 people and cut
electricity to the settlement, local officials said on Thursday.
Rescuers were working to restore power in the town, which had a pre-war
population of about 83,000. Regional officials said there had been 10
explosions during the attack and Mayor Artem Semenikhin said the power
system was in critical condition.
"At the moment, energy workers are doing everything they can to provide
electricity to the hospital and the water supply system," he said in the
early hours of Thursday.
Hospitals continued to operate, he added.
Konotop is in Sumy region, which has been particularly targeted by
Russia in recent weeks.
Ukraine used Sumy as a staging ground for a surprise incursion into
Russia across the border last month in a bid to try to seize the
battlefield initiative as Russian forces inch forward in the east of
Ukraine.
After making rapid progress initially, Kyiv's advances into Russia's
Kursk region appear to have stalled, and a senior Russian commander said
on Wednesday his forces had taken back control of about 10 settlements
in a counterattack.
Ukraine has not commented on the latest Russian reported gains. Reuters
was not able to independently verify battlefield developments.
The strike on Konotop was part of a broader Russian attack using 64
drones, the air force said. It shot down 44 of them over nine different
regions, it said.
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A view shows a residential building damaged during a Russian drone
strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Konotop,
Sumy region, Ukraine September 12, 2024. Press service of the
National Police of Ukraine in Sumy region/Handout via REUTERS
Such attacks have become regular, almost nightly occurrences since
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Though Ukraine is heavily outgunned and lacks a large arsenal of
long-range missiles, it has tried to take the fight back to Russia
by launching hundreds of drones at it.
Semenikhin said the authorities in Konotop did not know when the
power would be restored and they planned to supply water on hourly
basis.
The attack also damaged seven apartment buildings, medical and
educational institutions, a shop, a bank and a section of the town's
tramway, regional prosecutors and local officials said.
The Russian drone attack also caused a fire at a furniture storage
warehouse in the central Khmelnytskyi region which emergency
services were still trying to extinguish in the morning, governor
Serhiy Tiurin said.
The governor of the northern Chernihiv region said Russia had
stepped up its attacks there in the past day, causing damage to the
region's infrastructure. He did not say what exactly had been hit.
(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Tom Balmforth and Angus
MacSwan)
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