Guided Bomb Strike on Sumy School Kills Two, Wounds Six, Zelensky Says

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that a Russian guided-bomb strike on a school building in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two people and wounded six others, including three children, as emergency crews worked at the site.

In a Telegram post published Sept. 29, Zelensky said Russian guided aerial bombs hit central Sumy and struck a school building. He said children and teachers had been in shelter and that about 100 people were either evacuated in time or were already sheltering when the attack occurred. He also said private homes nearby were damaged. Local officials and Ukrainian media had reported the strike earlier, on Sept. 27, making Zelensky’s statement a later presidential account of that attack.

Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, said separately that guided aerial bombs hit Sumy and heavily damaged an educational institution in a residential area. The Sumy regional administration, as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda, said the two people killed were an elderly woman and a 16-year-old girl. Officials’ description of the school as being in a private-sector neighborhood helps explain reports that nearby homes were also damaged.

Some details in the official accounts differed. Zelensky said teaching was underway and that children and teachers were in shelter when the strike hit. Hryhorov later wrote, “At the moment of the strike there were no children in the building.” Early reporting also varied on the number of bombs and casualties: Zelensky said four KAB bombs were used and that six people were wounded, while several earlier local reports described three bombs and five injured. KAB is the Russian abbreviation for a guided aerial bomb.

Zelensky said the latest known toll was two dead and six wounded, including three children, and said emergency and rescue services were working at the scene. Hryhorov’s earlier posts likewise described a strike by guided bombs on civilian infrastructure in Sumy.

No public statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry on this specific strike was identified in the source material reviewed.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said Russia has used KAB guided bombs against populated areas, and Sumy officials identified that weapon type in this case. In his Tuesday post, Zelensky also called on Ukraine’s partners to take stronger action to increase pressure on Russia and bolster Ukraine’s air defenses.