War in Ukraine. Reuters: Ukraine plans to use ATACMS in coming days

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SER / via REUTERS

A Russian rocket killed eight people in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday, officials said.

Among the dead are two children, said Interior Minister Ihoris Klymenka.

Another 10 residents were injured in the attack. At least 10 high-rise buildings in one of the city’s residential areas were damaged, the regional prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

One damaged nine-story building, from which more than 400 residents were evacuated, is reportedly still searching for people.

Sumatra is 40 km from the border with Russia.

Russia launched its biggest drone and missile attack on Ukraine in months on Sunday. It is feared that Moscow aims to destroy Ukraine’s power generation capacity before winter.

Sources of the AP news agency also reported on Sunday that after intensive lobbying efforts by Ukrainian officials, outgoing US President Joe Biden has for the first time authorized Ukraine to use powerful American long-range weapons for limited strikes on Russian territory.

Sources say this is in response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to aid Russia in its war in Ukraine.

This is the second time that the United States has authorized the limited use of Western weapons against targets on Russian territory. In May, the use of shorter-range HIMARS systems was authorized to stop the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region.

After Mr. Biden decided to allow Ukraine to use American long-range missiles against targets on Russian territory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky succinctly said that the missiles would speak for themselves.

V. Zelenskyi said on Sunday that Russia launched 120 missiles and almost 100 drones in a large-scale attack across Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said later on Sunday that 144 of 210 air targets had been shot down.

Explosions rumbled across Ukraine on Sunday, including the capital Kyiv, the southern port city of Odesa, and western and central regions of the country.

“The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately, (some) objects were damaged during impacts and falling debris. In Mykolaiv, as a result of the drone attack, two people were killed and another six people were injured, including two children,” V. Zelenskis said.

Two more people were killed in the Odesa region, where the attack damaged energy infrastructure, disrupted electricity and water supplies, local governor Oleh Kiper said.

Civilians were also killed in Lviv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Authorities in Kherson reported that a 51-year-old woman was killed.

Two employees of the state railway operator Ukrzaliznycia were killed when Russians hit a depot in the city of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Serhiy Lysak and the operator said. Three other people were injured in the explosion.

Maksym Kozycki, head of the Lviv region, said a 66-year-old woman was killed in Sheptycki, about 20 km from the Polish border.

Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia

Ukrainians also attacked Russia with drones on Sunday. A local journalist was killed in such a strike in the Kursk region, Governor Aleksey Smirnov said.

For several months now, Moscow forces have been trying to oust the southern Kursk region from Ukrainian soldiers who invaded it in August. The invasion, in which the Ukrainians quickly seized hundreds of square kilometers of territory, is the largest attack on Russia since World War II.

A Ukrainian drone killed a man in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Another Ukrainian drone targeted a drone factory in Izhevsk, far into Russian territory, on Sunday, anti-Kremlin Russian news outlets reported via the Telegram platform. Aleksandrs Brechalov, the head of the region, said that windows were broken when a drone exploded near a factory in this city, but no serious damage was done.

One person was hospitalized for a short time due to a head injury, added A. Brečalovas.

Source: www.15min.lt