Russia and Ukraine trade blame over an attack on a boarding school in Russia’s Kursk region

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Competing claims emerged over a deadly attack on a boarding school in Sudzha, a city in Russia’s Kursk region that has been under Ukrainian control for five months, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of carrying out the strike.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Saturday night that four people were killed and a further four seriously wounded in the strike, with 84 people rescued by Ukrainian servicemen from the rubble of the building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Moscow had bombed the boarding school where civilians were sheltering and preparing to evacuate.

The General Staff said those in need of additional medical assistance were evacuated to medical facilities in Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed in the early hours of Sunday that it was Ukrainian forces that had launched a missile strike on the school, saying that the missiles were launched from Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Meanwhile, the death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Poltava on Saturday rose to 12, including two children, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Sunday. Seventeen people were injured in the attack on the five-story building, it said.

Moscow sent 55 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, 40 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 13 drones were “lost”, likely having been electronically jammed.

Two people were wounded in a drone attack in the Kharkiv region, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Sunday.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said that five Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight in five regions of western Russia: three over the Kursk region, and one each over the Belgorod and Bryansk regions.

A man was killed in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.