A Russian guided aerial bomb tore through a nine-storey apartment building in Sumy late Friday, killing two city employees and injuring at least seven civilians as rescue crews spent the night digging survivors out of the rubble, Ukrainian officials said.

The strike hit the building's Kovpakivskyi district around 10:50 p.m. local time, slamming into the structure between the third and fourth floors and igniting fires that spread through the stairwell as residents scrambled to escape, according to the Kyiv Post. Sumy's military administration said Russian aircraft dropped six or seven KAB guided bombs on the city during the assault, damaging at least four residential blocks in the same neighborhood.

City Workers Among the Dead

The two people killed were identified as employees of the Sumy City Council's executive committee — a 52-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman — Mayor Artem Kobzar confirmed. Among the injured were two children, aged 7 and 13, with several victims described as in serious condition, according to LIGA.net. Four people, including a 7-year-old boy, were pulled alive from beneath the collapsed debris as search efforts continued into the early hours.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who tracked the response through the night, called the attack an assault on civilian life.

"ALL SERVICES ARE CURRENTLY WORKING AT THE SITE OF AN ABSOLUTELY INHUMANE RUSSIAN STRIKE ON A RESIDENTIAL HIGH-RISE IN SUMY."

Sumy, an industrial city of roughly 250,000 people close to Ukraine's border with Russia, has been repeatedly targeted throughout the war. A previous guided-bomb attack on the city in July killed five civilians and wounded 43, including a 13-year-old girl, according to United24 Media, which also reported that the same overnight wave of strikes hit a medical clinic in Pavlohrad and logistics infrastructure near Kyiv.

Ukrainian officials say Moscow has increasingly relied on glide bombs and jet-powered drones launched from just across the border — weapons that are cheap to produce, fly low, and are difficult for Ukraine's Western-supplied air defenses to intercept before impact, unlike longer-range cruise and ballistic missiles.

Zelensky used the strike to press Washington to advance a stalled sanctions package targeting Russian energy revenue, saying Kyiv is counting on the bill "eventually becoming law" to help force Moscow toward negotiations. Regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov said medics and emergency crews remained on site into Saturday, with authorities still working to confirm whether anyone remained trapped and to fully account for the injured as the death toll was reassessed.

No further casualties had been confirmed as of Saturday morning, though officials cautioned the toll could still rise as crews cleared the wreckage.