Russian glide bomb attack on Sumy kills four, including a girl

What are glide bombs?

Glide bombs repeatedly hit civilian objects. Russia frequently uses them in the war against Ukraine. Russia has been waging war against Ukraine for more than four years.

Russian troops also hold strips of land in the Ukrainian regions of Sumy and Kharkiv bordering Russia. While Russian territorial gains there are minimal, the suffering of the Ukrainian civilian population has increased as a result.

Territorial gains and buffer zone

Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin had declared the previous year that he wanted to create a buffer zone there to protect the Russian civilian population from Ukrainian attacks. Russia claims the four Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia for itself.

In the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, two more people died, according to the regional administration. Missiles fired by Russia had struck a building, it was said.

Further victims in Odessa and Kyiv

In the capital Kyiv, eleven people were injured by the attack, according to reports. The Ukrainian Air Force had registered a high number of Russian missiles and drones overnight.

During the night, the Ukrainian military had attacked a tanker and other ships in the Sea of Azov. Russian authorities reported one death in connection with the Ukrainian attack on ships in the Sea of Azov.

Appeal to the USA

President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the USA to allow Ukraine to build Patriot air defense missiles. US President Trump had promised this at the NATO summit in Ankara.

This news was broadcast on July 11, 2026 on the Deutschlandfunk program. The reports are based, among other things, on information from the news agency AFP.

Humanitarian situation

The attacks illustrate the ongoing escalation of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Civilian infrastructure and residential areas are regularly affected, further worsening the humanitarian situation in the affected regions.

International observers point to the systematic use of glide bombs against civilian targets as a worrying development. The repeated hits in residential areas raise questions about compliance with international humanitarian law.