KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least nine people were killed Saturday morning in two consecutive Russian attacks on a medical center in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, officials said.
One person was killed in the first attack. Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said Russia struck again while patients and staff were being evacuated.
Local officials in Sumy province said a Shahed drone was used in the attack. Twelve other people were injured, Sumy military authorities said.
Sumy is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 to divert the Kremlin's military focus from the Ukrainian front line.
The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 69 of 73 Russian drones launched overnight and two of four missiles. Kiev city authorities said about 15 drones were shot down over the Ukrainian capital and its suburbs.
Local officials in the city of Kryvyiyi, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Saturday that the body of a man was found under the rubble of an administrative building hit by a Russian missile on Friday, bringing the death toll in the attack to four. It was announced that.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday that a nighttime air defense operation shot down four Ukrainian-made drones over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, and one over the Kursk region.
Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced Saturday that Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian border city of Sibekino, killing one person. Two others were injured.
