Russian drone barrage kills four in east Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine, January 30 — A Russian drone attack that targeted cities across Ukraine killed at least four people in a Soviet-era residential block in the eastern city of Sumy, the interior ministry said.

Moscow has pummelled Ukrainian cities with dozens of drones or missiles almost daily since it invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

Images distributed by emergency services showed a gaping hole ripped into the side of the building and rescue workers working with head lamps digging through debris for survivors.

"This is a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime. It is very important that the world does not pause in putting pressure on Russia for this terror," President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said four people were killed and nine others, including a child, were wounded in Sumy.

The town lies just over the border from Russia in northeastern Ukraine and has been targeted regularly in Russian aerial attacks.

Some 255,672 people lived there before the war.

The Ukrainian air force said Moscow had attacked with 81 drones, including the Iranian-designed Shahed type unmanned aerial vehicles.

Their air defence units downed 37 of the drones in various regions, including Sumy and near the capital Kyiv.

In the southern region of Odesa, which lies on the Black Sea, officials said Russian drones targeted the port town of Izmail, one of several important Ukrainian export hubs.