A massive Russian drone attack on Sumy in the night to Friday injured at least two people. This was reported by the governor of Sumy region, Oleh Hryhorov, according to the news outlet Kyiv Post and the news outlet NV.
“During the night the enemy carried out a massive attack with combat drones on Sumy,” Hryhorov wrote on his Telegram channel, according to Kyiv Post. “Unfortunately, some enemy drones reached their targets.” According to the governor, the strikes targeted civilian infrastructure at three locations in the city, including the Kowpakivskyi residential district. Residential buildings were damaged there. How serious the injuries of the two victims are was initially unknown; they received medical care. Rescue workers were working at the impact sites. The information on damage and injuries was preliminary, it was said.
NV described the attack as a massive drone attack with Shahed drones. The information from both outlets is based on Hryhorov’s account; it could not be independently verified initially.
Sumy lies near the Russian border and has repeatedly been the target of drone, missile and glide bomb attacks since the start of the war. According to NV, in the night to 20 October a drone hit a residential building in the Sarechnyi district and triggered a fire. On 17 October the Russian army fired eight guided aerial bombs at locations in Sumy region, four of them at the city; a 42-year-old man was killed and two people were injured. On 8 October the Russian army shelled the city with four long-range missiles according to NV, one person died, four were injured, including two children with minor injuries.
The attack on Sumy followed another night of Russian missile and drone attacks on 22 October. In Kyiv, according to the State Emergency Service, ballistic missiles hit residential buildings, medical facilities, shops and transport infrastructure, including sections of the metro at the Southern Bridge; one person was killed, at least 22 were injured (as of Thursday morning). The Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions were also attacked. According to these reports, two civilians were killed and nine injured in Donetsk region, one person was killed and four injured in Kherson region, and three people were killed and three injured in Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned, according to Kyiv Post, that Moscow is exploiting slowing deliveries of Western air defence systems and weakening sanctions pressure. Ukraine has long demanded additional Patriot interceptor missiles from US production. In Brussels, NATO announced according to Kyiv Post that Ukraine may buy weapons through the alliance’s central procurement agency on a case-by-case basis.
The attacks continue even though Moscow has stated, according to Kyiv Post, that it intends to resume trilateral negotiations with Ukraine and the USA next month. Russia continues to demand a withdrawal of Ukraine from the areas of Donetsk region it controls and far-reaching restrictions on the Ukrainian military and its Western security relations. Kyiv rejects these conditions.
