'Massive' Russian Attack Kills 8 in Ukraine, Including 2 Kids

A Russian strike on a nine-story building in the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded dozens, an official said Sunday, as Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack described by officials as the largest in recent months. Among the eight killed in Sumy, 24 miles from the border with Russia, were two children, said Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko. More than 400 people were evacuated from the building, the AP reports. The rescuers were checking every apartment looking for people who might still be in the damaged building.

The drone and missile attack, which targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure, came as fears are mounting about Moscow's intentions to devastate Ukraine's power generation capacity ahead of the winter. Earlier, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had launched a total of 120 missiles and 90 drones in a large-scale attack across Ukraine. Various types of drones were deployed, he said, including Iranian-made Shaheds, as well as cruise, ballistic, and aircraft-launched ballistic missiles. Ukrainian defenses shot down 144 out of a total of 210 air targets, Ukraine's air force reported later on Sunday.

The combined drone and missile attack was the most powerful in three months, according to the head of Kyiv's City Military Administration, Serhii Popko. Russia's Defense Ministry on Sunday acknowledged carrying out a "mass" missile and drone attack on "critical energy infrastructure" in Ukraine, but claimed all targeted facilities were tied to Kyiv's military industry. Although Ukraine's nuclear plants were not directly impacted, several electrical substations on which they depend suffered further damage, the UN's nuclear energy watchdog said in a statement Sunday. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, only two of Ukraine's nine operational reactors continue to generate power at full capacity. (Also Sunday, President Biden authorized for the first time the use of US-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia.)