Massive Russian strike said to kill 3 in north Ukraine; Kremlin says it took over key Donbas city

A massive Russian bomb strike on the center of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least three people on Friday and injured many others, including children, Regional Governor Oleh Hryhorov says.

“At the epicenter of the strike — a high-rise apartment building, a shop and a street,” Oleh Hryhorov wrote on Telegram. “There were a great many people. Children.”

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Russian forces captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka, a key post on the road leading to the last major cities in the Donbas region under Kyiv’s control.

“Kostyantynivka has been completely taken. The city is now entirely under our control,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including those from AFP, announcing that President Vladimir Putin had spoken with the military about it.

Kostyantynivka is one of the last Ukrainian strongholds on the way to the key cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, whose capture is the Kremlin’s ultimate objective in the Donbas.

Russian forces now control the entire Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine, one of the two regions that make up the Donbas, Peskov adds.