A Russian-guided aerial bomb hit a five-story nursing home for older people in the northern city of Sumy, Ukraine, on Thursday, killing at least one person and injuring 12 others, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry.
It was the latest in a series of air attacks targeting Sumy in recent weeks, after Ukraine’s offensive into the nearby Russian region of Kursk.
The region of Sumy, just across the border, has been used as a base by the Ukrainian Army to launch its cross-border assaults into the Kursk region. Ukrainian troops regularly travel back to Sumy after missions on Russian territory, and convoys of military vehicles can often be seen in the area on their way to Kursk.
Russia has responded to the offensive with waves of strikes on the Sumy region, including some that targeted urban centers and caused civilian casualties. Nine people were seriously injured in Thursday’s attack and taken to the hospital, according to the head of the regional military administration, Volodymyr Artiukhin.
The building, which housed 221 people, had its roof and top floor partly destroyed. Everyone was evacuated, and no one was trapped inside, according to the authorities.
A video published by the Ukrainian Emergency Service showed the area around the building strewed with rubble, as emergency workers helped older people out amid the sound of ambulance sirens and the cracking of broken glass.
“There were many people covered in blood,” a 53-year-old volunteer named Lilia who often helps out at the care home said in a phone interview. Many of the residents were bedridden, she said, and rescuers carried some people out in wheelchairs and on stretchers. Lilia insisted on being identified only by her first name because she was not authorized to speak on the matter.
Overnight attacks throughout Ukraine had already left Sumy, a city of about 250,000 people, without water on Thursday. The regional water supply company reported that its facilities were without power because of Russian airstrikes.
“The enemy continues to terrorize the civilian population of Sumy region, striking at critical infrastructure facilities,” the regional military administration wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
The Sumy region had been hit regularly by Russian airstrikes and shelling since the start of the full-scale invasion in early 2022. But Ukraine’s offensive into the Kursk region, which started last month, has now brought the front line closer and led to an increase in Russian attacks.
In particular, energy infrastructure in Sumy has been badly damaged, part of a broader campaign by Moscow to degrade Ukraine’s power plants and make it harder for utilities to provide basic services.
Large-scale Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which started in March, “have inflicted extensive harm and hardship on the country’s civilian population, with potentially devastating consequences as winter approaches,” said the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in a report released on Thursday.
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