July 3 (Reuters) – A massive Russian glide bomb strike on the centre of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least four people, including a child, on Friday and injured 27, Regional Governor Oleh Hryhorov said.
Other areas in Sumy region and in southeastern Ukraine, closer to the front lines, also came under Russian attack, killing a total of six people.
“At the epicentre of the strike — a high-rise apartment building, a shop and a street,” Hryhorov wrote on Telegram of the strike in Sumy. “There were a great many people. Children.”
Hryhorov said the dead included a five-year-old child and her mother. The injured were being treated in hospitals, he said, including a 13-year-old in serious condition.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted pictures of the aftermath of the attack, including medics attending to the injured, a strip of pavement covered in blood along with two abandoned sandals and a building reduced to rubble.
He called for Ukraine’s allies to intensify pressure on Russia “so that the terror can be stopped”.
Sumy region, under near-constant attacks by Russian forces, is on the Russian border. Moscow has in recent months tried to expand what it describes as a buffer zone in the region.
Earlier in the day, one person was killed when Russian forces launched glide bombs near the city of Sumy.
To the southeast, more than 50 strikes involving drones, artillery and bombs killed three in Dnipropetrovsk region, including two near Nikopol, a town on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Twelve people were injured, Regional Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram.
Two people were killed in a strike in the city of Zaporizhzhia, a frequent recent target of deadly attacks, Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said. A total of 21 people were hurt.
Fedorov said new attacks were launched on the city late in the evening.
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.
The capital Kyiv was observing a day of mourning, a day after a Russian missile and drone attack killed at least 30 people in the deadliest strike on the city this year.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Rod Nickel)
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