Seven people were killed, including a child, in a drone attack by Russia on Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
The drone strike hit a dormitory building at an educational institution in the town of Hlukhiv at around 11.20pm, local authorities said.
Twelve people were wounded, including two children, the Sumy military administration said.
A video shared by Mr Zelensky showed emergency workers sifting through the rubble of the partially destroyed building as search and rescue operations continued into the morning.
Russia continues to terrorize our border regions. Last night, a drone hit Hlukhiv, destroying a dormitory at one of the local educational institutions. Tragically, as of now, we know that seven people, including a child, were killed in this attack. My deepest condolences go to… pic.twitter.com/QTGbj5GQXn
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 19, 2024
The regional military administration said that Russian forces used two drones in the attack.
“Every new Russian strike only confirms Putin’s true intentions. He wants the war to continue, he is not interested in talking about peace,” said Ukraine’s president.
UNICEF, the United Nation’s children’s organisation, said on Monday that at least 2,406 children have been killed or injured in Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion in February 2022, including 659 children killed and 1,747 children injured.
It stressed that this amounted to at least 16 children killed or injured every week, with millions of youngsters living under fear of air strikes.
“The toll on children is staggering and unacceptable,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children have been killed in their beds, in hospitals and playgrounds, leaving families devastated by the loss of young lives or life-altering injuries.”
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 51 drones and lost track of 30 more after Russia launched 87 drones overnight.
Russian forces have pummelled the northeastern region of Sumy in the past months, damaging its critical and civilian infrastructure.
A Sunday missile strike there killed 11 people including two children, injured 89 and cut power in the city of Sumy.
The growing number of victims of Putin’s war comes as Joe Biden has given Kyiv permission to fire US ATACMS long-range missiles into Russia.
The weapons are expected to be used to help Ukrainian forces hold onto a swathe of the Kursk region of Russia which they seized in a surprise attack in the summer.
America will announce additional security assistance for Ukraine in coming days, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Monday.
The extra military supplies will be seen as an attempt to strengthen Kyiv’s position ahead of possible peace talks when Donald Trump becomes president in January, having claimed he could end the conflict in a day.
In reponse to Mr Biden’s move, Putin on Tuesday approved an updated nuclear doctrine, saying that Russia could consider using nuclear weapons if it was subject to a conventional missile assault on it supported by a nuclear power.
Mr Biden has long resisted calls from Mr Zelensky for consent to fire Western missiles into Russia.
But he changed his mind in a decision which is believed to have been partly driven by thousands of North Korean troops being deployed to western Russia to support Putin’s war.
Britain has pushed for increasingly more powerful weapons to be supplied to Kyiv.
But it was not clear if America will give permission for British Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which use US navigational data, to be fired deep into Russia.
