Russia launched drones against energy infrastructure in Shostka and Konotop in Ukraine’s northeast Sumy region bordering Russia, cutting off electricity to the regional capital amidst speculations of a renewed Russian offensive in the area.
“Due to the enemy attack, the city of Sumy does not receive electrical energy. We are waiting for recovery and, first of all, we are providing critical infrastructure,” announced Oleksiy Drozdenko, head of the City Military Administration, close to 4 a.m. on Wednesday.
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In a later update at around 9 a.m, Drozdenko said water supply had largely been restored in the city, and “all critical infrastructure facilities, hospitals, schools, and kindergartens [were] working as usual.”
Local media reported that as of 8:30 a.m., electricity across most of the region has been fully restored except for 88 settlements on the Russian border.
The Sumy Regional Military Administration announced that local air defenses shot down seven Shahed kamikaze drones.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Border Guard spokesperson Andriy Demchenko said a Russian offensive on Sumy – following Moscow’s recent advances in the Kharkiv region – cannot be ruled out, and that Moscow might attack the Sumy region to divert Ukrainian troops.
“The enemy can at any moment, even if he does not have sufficient forces, try to do something similar to what is currently happening in the Kharkiv region,” he told Radio Liberty.
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A week prior, Ukraine’s Military Intel Chief Kyrylo Budanov told a New York Times (NYT) journalist that Russia would launch a new offensive further north of its ongoing Kharkiv offensive, in the Sumy region, where Moscow would try to stretch the already thin reserves of Ukrainian soldiers, distracting them from fighting elsewhere.
In April, Budanov also warned off “a rather difficult situation” in May in a BBC interview, though he assured that “armageddon” was not on the horizon.
It’s not clear if Budanov was then referring to Russia’s ongoing offensive in northeast Ukraine.
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