Russian Double-Tap Strikes on Hospital in Sumy Kill at Least 9

Two Russian strikes on a hospital in the Ukrainian border city of Sumy killed at least nine people on Saturday.

According to the Sumy Regional Prosecutor’s Office preliminary assessment, the first strike was a Shahed UAV which hit around 7:35 a.m.

At the time of the explosion, there were 86 patients in the hospital, 15 of them with reduced mobility, and 38 employees of the institution.

As a result of the first strike, 1 person was killed and 10 were injured.

Around 8:25 a.m., 50 minutes later, when rescuers and police officers were providing aid and evacuating the sick at the scene, the second attack killed 5 people, including a police officer, with one other policeman injured. Others died in hospital.

In the video filmed early this morning a rescue worker has to scramble when the second drones hits.

The double-tap strike is technique intended to maximize civilian casualties and thereby terrorize the population.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram that “in Sumy, Russians attacked a medical facility twice: as of now, 6 people have been killed,” including a policeman.

Sumy lies just across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a shock offensive on Aug. 6, aimed in part at creating a “buffer zone” inside Russia.

The first attack “killed one person” and damaged several floors of a hospital and after that, patients and staff began being evacuated, Klymenko said.

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If this information is confirmed, it would be the first time such a weapon had been used since Russia invaded in February 2022.

“During the evacuation of patients, the enemy struck again,” Klymenko wrote, adding that another policeman was wounded.

Sumy regional administration wrote on Telegram that both strikes involved Shahed attack drones.

It said the second strike hit a residential area.

Ukraine’s Suspilne news outlet published photographs from the scene showing several bodies lying on the pavement and the roof partially ripped off the hospital building.

Dobrobat, a volunteer group that helps repair damaged homes, wrote on Facebook that its volunteers were working at the scene when the second strike came.

It posted video showing thick smoke, explosions and people rushing to take shelter as sirens wailed. 

“People are just lying on the street dead,” a volunteer said, filming himself at the scene on his phone.

“We survived due to a miracle as we went into the entranceway of a building,” the unnamed volunteer said.

Kyiv was also attack with drones. In the early morning hours a Kyiv Post reporter witness air defense shooting at drones flying above the city center in the darkness.