Russia has launched a guided bomb into a home for the elderly in Ukraine, leaving a 78-year-old woman dead and at least 14 wounded.
Harrowing footage shows traumatised residents being evacuated from the home in Sumy after Vladimir Putin‘s forces wrecked the building in the callous strike.
Some 221 people lived in the retirement centre before it was smashed apart when the missile hit the fifth floor of the complex.
‘There are wounded, some of them are in serious condition and they have been hospitalised,’ said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the Sumy regional administration, as he announced an evacuation.
Mykola, a patient who lived on the fourth floor of the Sumy Geriatric Boarding House, said: ‘I was in the room, there was an explosion, the windows shattered.’
An elderly resident of the home is carried out in a chair by emergency workers after the blast
The building was torn apart after a missile hit the fifth floor on Thursday afternoon
Elderly residents are assisted by emergency workers after the horror blast on the Sumy home
An elderly woman is helped out of the retirement 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 ****ing Russians came.’
Another victim Viktor said: ‘The glass flew out. I was all covered in glass. The rescuers came and helped me to get down.’
Another called Volodymyr told reporters: ‘All my belongings are left there.
‘The window simply fell out. At least I didn’t [die] there. A man was carried out of my ward.’
The city’s acting mayor Artem Kobzar said: ‘All the windows are completely broken, we made our way from the first floor to the last, it is impossible to stay inside at the moment.
‘The enemy is hitting people who have nothing to do with the war, they are just sick people.’
Raisa Kutsenko, who was taking care of patients on the fifth floor when the bomb hit, said: ‘There are no windows or doors, the roof has been demolished, there are no ceilings.
‘I had 24 people on the fifth floor. Eight were bedridden.’
Harrowing pictures show frail elderly people who are the latest victims of Putin’s aggression
Emergency response teams carry a person out of the building in a blanket
An elderly resident is stretchered out of the building, with 14 people injured in the blast
The residential home in Sumy was attacked on Thursday by a Russian guided bomb
Artyukh said the shocked residents ‘need medical and psychological assistance’.
He added that the attack had taken place in the afternoon while residents were having lunch and resting.
Pictures show residents in wheelchairs being carried out of the damaged building by firefighters and other emergency workers.
Sumy Oblast, which is on Ukraine’s northeast border with Russia, has faced increased attacks from Russia since Ukraine invaded part of neighbouring Kursk region in early August.
Over the past six weeks, Russia has scrambled troops to halt the incursion into its territory, and also ramped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Amid the heightened threat, Ukrainian authorities announced in August that they planned to evacuate a total of 45,000 residents from parts of the most impaced parts of the region.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 61 out of 70 Russian attack drones and one out of four missiles launched by Russia into its territory, including at the capital Kyiv.
‘The air defence system operated in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Khmelnytsky, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson regions,’ it said on Telegram.