WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian attacks on hospital in Ukraine's Sumy kill 10, Kyiv says

Russia attacked a hospital in Sumy in northeastern Ukraine early on Saturday, killing 10 people and injuring at least 22 others, Ukrainian officials said.

Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said "loitering munitions" - or suicide drones - hit the Saint Panteleimon Clinical Hospital in two attacks 45 minutes apart.

"Most of the fatalities occurred during the second strike, which hit as first responders arrived at the site and patients attempted to evacuate," she said.

Sumy's regional administration said late on Saturday that 10 people had been killed and 22 injured, including 15 who were in hospital, five of them in serious condition. All the hospital's patients were evacuated to other facilities, it added.

Sumy City Council said on its website that nine high-rise buildings were damaged in addition to the hospital.

Bell said she had been in Sumy last week following up on a deadly Sept. 19 attack on a geriatric centre in which at least one civilian had been killed and 13 injured, and recalled an Aug. 13 attack on another hospital complex in the city.

"Medical facilities are protected under international humanitarian law and are entitled to special protection. They must not be the object of attack," she said, adding that 33 civilians had been killed and 132 injured in Sumy city and the surrounding region since Aug. 6.

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

DRONE ATTACKS

The hospital shared a photograph on its Facebook page it said showed one of those killed, a nurse and mother of two daughters named Tatiana Tikhonova.

"The first attack killed one person and damaged the ceilings of several floors of the hospital," Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

"Everyone in the world who talks about this war should pay attention to where Russia is hitting. They are fighting hospitals, civilian objects and people's lives," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

"Only force can force Russia to peace. Peace through force is the only right way."

Klymenko did not specify what weapons were used in Saturday's attacks. The regional administration and air forces said the strike was carried out by drones, which Bell identified as loitering munitions.

Attacks on Sumy city and the Sumy region have become more frequent since Ukrainian forces launched an operation in Russia's Kursk region in August and captured dozens of settlements.

Sumy city is located just 32 km (20 miles) from the Russian border, and Russian forces, which began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have been attacking the region and the city with drones and guided bombs.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Most Ukrainian soldiers last only a few days – FT

The Ukrainian military has been so depleted by attrition that new infantry troops are often unfit for combat and flee at the first sign of fighting, the Financial Times reported on Friday. In some units, around two thirds of soldiers are reportedly killed or wounded within days of arriving at the front.

Manpower shortages have plagued the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) for well over a year, according to reports in Ukrainian and Western media outlets. After multiple rounds of conscription, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 45, and many of those sent to the front are unfit for combat, multiple commanders and soldiers told the British newspaper.

“When the new guys get to the position, a lot of them run away at the first shell explosion,” a deputy commander fighting near Ugledar in Donetsk Region said. Another commander whose unit is attempting to hold the nearby town of Khurakove said that “some guys freeze [because] they are too afraid to shoot the enemy, and then they are the ones who leave in body bags or severely wounded.” 

The commanders estimated that 50-70% of new infantry troops are killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.

Russian forces have gained ground near Ugledar, Khurakove, and the key logistics hub of Povrovsk in recent weeks. Many of the AFU’s most experienced troops were pulled from this sector of the front in August to take part in the invasion of Russia’s Kursk Region, an operation that has cost Kiev more than 17,750 servicemen, over 130 tanks, and hundreds of other combat vehicles, according to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

Experienced soldiers “are being killed off too quickly” and replaced by older and less fit men, another commander told the Financial Times. “As infantry, you need to run, you need to be strong, you need to carry heavy equipment,” he said, adding: “It’s hard to do that if you aren’t young.” 

As of May, the Ukrainian military has been drafting 30,000 soldiers per month. However, AFU Commander-in-Chief General Aleksandr Syrsky admitted earlier this month that these new recruits are often sent to fight with as little as six weeks’ training. The commanders who spoke to the Financial Times said that they consider this training worthless, as many of the AFU’s instructors haven’t seen combat themselves.

“Some of them don’t even know how to hold their rifles,” one officer said. “They peel more potatoes than they shoot bullets,” he complained, explaining that he had bought paintball guns in order to teach his new men how to shoot without wasting ammunition.

Those who survive often go AWOL after their first rotation, while others are so shell-shocked and exhausted that they are checked into psychiatric wards, the newspaper reported. With the AFU under no legal obligation to demobilize troops, joining the army or getting conscripted is viewed by recruits as “a one-way ticket,” a ten-year veteran told the Financial Times.

While the Ukrainian military does not publish casualty figures, the Russian Defense Ministry estimates Kiev’s losses since February 2022 at around half a million men.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, however, maintains that with more Western weapons and money, Russia can be “forced into peace.”Moscow considers Zelensky’s belief in military victory “delusional,”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week.

Reuters/RT