A Russian drone opened a hole in an apartment building in northeastern Ukraine during a nighttime attack, killing at least nine people and injuring 13 others, authorities reported on Thursday.
The Shahed drone destroyed a wall and the surrounding windows in the apartment block in Sumy, a large city, past 1:00 a.m., according to the regional government. Four people were rescued from the rubble, including a child among the injured, while 120 people were evacuated.
The deceased were three elderly married couples, detailed the Regional Prosecutor's Office of Sumy, in addition to a 74-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman, mother of an injured girl. There is another unidentified deceased person. The regional government announced two days of mourning in the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described it as "a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime."
Sumy, a city where more than 255,000 people lived before the 2022 Russian invasion, is near the border with Russia and has often been the target of airstrikes.
The large-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, which began three years ago and shows no signs of ending, has killed more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
Civilians have also faced difficulties caused by Russian attacks on the power grid that have deprived them of heating and running water. Many have been evacuated from areas along the nearly 1,000-kilometer front, where Ukrainian defenses are struggling to contain the larger Russian army.
Russian forces have started using Shahed drones with an increased payload of 90 kilograms of explosives and metal shrapnel to "increase the number of casualties," said Andrii Yermak, head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, on Telegram.
Yermak posted photographs of what he claimed were the Shahed warheads, with one photo showing what appeared to be small pieces of metal inside a metal cylinder.
The fighting has been particularly intense recently in the eastern Donetsk region, which Russian forces partially occupy and seem determined to capture entirely in the coming months.
A Russian artillery attack in the city of Kramatorsk, in Donetsk, injured 13 people, including two young children, wrote Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin on Thursday on his Telegram channel.
"Anyone still remaining in the Donetsk region is putting themselves in grave danger," Filashkin warned. "Stay safe! Evacuate."
Russia launched more than 80 drones against Ukraine overnight, reported the Air Force, in a usual nighttime barrage. Most drones were shot down or stopped by electronic interference, they said.
In the southern Odesa region of Ukraine, Russian drones damaged a hospital and two apartment buildings, wrote regional head Oleh Kiper on Telegram. No one was injured, he added.