Russia launched a guided bomb at a nursing home in Ukraine, killing a 78-year-old woman and wounding at least 14 others.
Harrowing footage shows traumatised residents being evacuated from a house in Sumy after Vladimir Putin’s forces destroyed the building in a vicious attack.
Some 221 people lived in the retirement home before it was destroyed when the missile hit the fifth floor of the complex.
“There are injured people, some of them in serious condition and have been hospitalized,” said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the Sumy regional administration, announcing the evacuation.
Mykola, a patient living on the fourth floor of the Sumy nursing home, said: “I was in the room, there was an explosion, the windows were broken.”
An elderly resident of the home is carried out in a chair by emergency workers after the explosion.
The building was left in tatters after a missile hit the fifth floor on Thursday afternoon.
Emergency workers help elderly residents after Sumy house explosion
An elderly woman is helped out of a nursing home to safety by a rescuer.
Residents were placed on stretchers and makeshift beds outside after being evacuated from the building.
Pensioners lie on the ground outside the building after the indiscriminate attack by Putin’s forces
Another resident, Vitaly Anokhin, who lived in the home for six years, said: “Everything was fine until the damn Russians came.”
Another of the injured, Viktor, said: “Glass flew out. I was covered in glass. The rescuers came and helped me down.”
Another named Volodymyr told reporters: ‘All my belongings are there.
“The window just fell out. At least I didn’t die there. A man was taken out of my ward.”
The city’s acting mayor, Artem Kobzar, said: ‘All the windows are completely broken, we managed to get from the first floor to the last, it is impossible to stay inside at the moment.
“The enemy is attacking people who have nothing to do with the war, they are just sick people.”
Raisa Kutsenko, who was treating patients on the fifth floor when the bomb fell, said: “There are no windows or doors, the roof has been demolished, there are no ceilings.
“There were 24 people on the fifth floor. Eight were bedridden.”
Heartbreaking images show frail elderly people who are the latest victims of Putin’s aggression
Emergency response crews carry a person wrapped in a blanket out of the building.
An elderly resident is carried out of the building on a stretcher, with 14 people injured in the explosion
On Thursday, a Russian guided bomb attacked a residential house in Sumy.
Artyukh said the shocked residents “need medical and psychological assistance.”
He added that the attack occurred in the afternoon while the neighbors were having lunch and resting.
Footage shows residents in wheelchairs being wheeled out of the damaged building by firefighters and other emergency workers.
The Sumy region, located on Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia, has come under increasing attacks from Russia since Ukraine invaded part of the neighbouring Kursk region in early August.
Over the past six weeks, Russia has sent troops to stop the incursion into its territory and has also stepped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Amid the growing threat, Ukrainian authorities announced in August that they planned to evacuate a total of 45,000 residents from the worst-affected areas of the region.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 61 of 70 Russian attack drones and one of four missiles launched by Russia at its territory, including at the capital, kyiv.
“The air defense system operated in the Dnipropetrovsk, kyiv, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Khmelnytsky, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson regions,” he said on Telegram.