Russian strikes on a medical center kill 9 people in the Ukrainian city of Sumy

[September 28, 2024]  KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Two consecutive Russian attacks on a medical center in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least nine people on Saturday morning, officials said. 

Ukrainian serviceman of 56th brigade sits inside self-propelled artillery vehicle while firing towards Russian positions at the frontline on Chasiv Yar direction, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

The first strike killed one person. Russia attacked again while patients and staff were evacuating, said Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

Local officials in Sumy said Shahed drones were used in the attack. Twelve other people were wounded, Sumy's City Military administration said.

Sumy lies some 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 in a bid to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 69 of 73 Russian drones launched overnight as well as two of the four missiles. City authorities in Kyiv said around 15 drones had been shot down over the Ukrainian capital and its outskirts.

In Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city, local officials said Saturday that a man’s body was found under the rubble of an administrative building hit by a Russian missile on Friday, bringing the death toll from that attack to four.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Saturday that air defenses overnight had shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region and one over the Kursk region, both areas bordering Ukraine.

One person was killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian border city of Shebekino on Saturday, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Two other people were wounded.

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