At least six dead as Russian Shahed drone hits apartment building

A Russian drone blasted a hole in an apartment building in north-eastern Ukraine during a night-time attack, killing at least six people and injuring nine others, officials said on Thursday.

The Shahed drone blew out a wall and surrounding windows in the apartment block in Sumy, a major city, just after 1am, the Sumy regional administration said. A child was among the injured, it said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called it “a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime”.

The war between Russia and Ukraine, which enters its fourth year next month and shows no signs of ending, has killed more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.

Civilians have also endured hardship caused by Russian attacks on the power grid that have denied them heating and running water.

Many have been evacuated from areas along the roughly 600-mile front line where Ukrainian defences are straining to hold the bigger Russian army at bay.

Russia launched more than 80 drones at Ukraine overnight, the air force reported, in what are common night-time barrages.

Most of the drones were shot down or stopped by electronic jamming, it said.

In Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Russian drones damaged a hospital and two apartment buildings, regional head Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram. No one was injured, he said.

In the Poltava region of central Ukraine, emergency services pulled four people from under rubble and almost 120 others were evacuated after a Shahed drone destroyed a stable, according to authorities.

There was no immediate information on whether any horses were harmed.