Casualties after a Russian attack on Ukraine while Zelensky confirms receiving support from Trump

Russian forces shelled a medical center in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, on Saturday morning and then shelled it again as the building was being evacuated, killing 10 people and wounding 22, Ukrainian officials said.

The Sumy region administration said late Saturday that 10 people were killed and 22 injured, including 15 in hospital, five of them in serious condition.

It added that all hospital patients had been evacuated to other facilities.

Nine high-rise buildings were damaged in addition to the hospital, Sumy city council said on its website.

Bell said she was in Sumy last week to follow the September 19 attack on a nursing home that killed at least one civilian and wounded 13 others.

Ukrainian prosecutors said that at the time of the attacks on Saturday morning, there were 86 patients and 38 staff in the hospital.

“The first attack killed one person and damaged the roofs of several floors of the hospital,” Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said on Telegram.

Klimenko didn’t specify the weapons used in today’s attacks, but the regional administration and air force said they were carried out with drones.

Attacks on the city and region of Sumy have become more frequent since Ukrainian forces launched an operation in the neighboring Russian Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements.

Sumy is only 32 kilometers from the Russian border, and Russian forces are attacking the area and the city with drones and guided bombs.

From his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Saturday, said he had received very direct information from Donald Trump indicating that the former US president would support Ukraine in the war against Russia if he was re-elected in the presidential elections in November.

Zelensky, who was in the United States to attend the UN General Assembly, presented the victory plan for the war to Trump during a closed-door meeting on Friday, after the Republican presidential candidate said he would work with both Ukraine and Russia to end their conflict.

“I don’t know what will happen after the election and who will be the president, but I got very direct information from Donald Trump that he will be on our side, that he will support Ukraine,” Zelensky told Fox News after the meeting.

Zelensky used his visit to the United States to promote his plan for victory, which a US official described as a recast request for more weapons and the lifting of restrictions on long-range missiles.

The official said the plan assumes Russia’s ultimate defeat in the war, and some officials see that goal as unrealistic.

He, who also met with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, said he seeks unified US support in his ongoing war with Russia, and doesn’t support any side in the US election.

Trump said on Friday he was happy to meet Zelensky, a marked change in tone from some of his previous comments during the campaign.

The differences between Trump and Harris over Ukraine reflect divisions in their Democratic and Republican parties, and their views of the American role in the world.

Trump and some Republicans in Congress have questioned the value of additional US funding and weapons for Ukraine’s two-year-old fight against Russia, calling it pointless, while Democrats led by Biden have sought to punish Russia and support Ukraine, viewing a Ukrainian victory as a vital national security interest.

In the same context, North Korea, which has been accused of illegally supplying weapons to Russia, said on Sunday that the US military aid worth eight billion dollars to Ukraine is a grave mistake and playing with fire against Moscow, the nuclear superpower.

US President Joe Biden announced the new aid during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington to help Kyiv defend itself, including longer-range weapons that would improve its ability to strike Russia from safer distances.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Washington was escalating the conflict in Ukraine and pushing all of Europe to the brink of nuclear war.

“The United States and the West should neither ignore nor underestimate the serious warning made by Russia,” Kim said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

“Are the United States and the West really capable of dealing with the consequences while they recklessly play with fire with Russia, a nuclear superpower?” she asked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that he might use nuclear weapons if Russia is attacked by missiles and that he would consider any attack against it backed by a nuclear power a joint attack.

Kim said helping Zelensky continue his military adventure was a dangerous and irresponsible risk, and that announcing $8 billion in new military aid was an unbelievable mistake and a foolish act.

Kim, who holds a position in North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, frequently makes statements about Pyongyang’s position on political and security issues that are believed to have been approved by the country’s leader.

North Korea and Russia have greatly improved their relations over the past year, with their leaders meeting twice and agreeing to a comprehensive strategic partnership that includes a pledge of mutual defense.

The United States said North Korea had shipped at least 16,500 containers of weapons to Russia since September last year, and that Russia had fired missiles from those shipments against Ukraine.

Both North Korea and Russia deny any illegal arms trade between them.