Russian forces struck the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Sumy on 16 September, killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen others in a series of drone and aerial bomb attacks that sparked fires, destroyed homes and damaged residential infrastructure across both cities.

In Odesa — Ukraine's main Black Sea port city in the country's south — a drone strike after midday killed one man and set garages ablaze, with the blast damaging nearby homes and vehicles. Hours later, a second strike hit a 19-storey apartment building, injuring three people, including a child. Footage released by Ukraine's State Emergency Service showed firefighters working through burning debris and navigating damage across multiple structures.

Further north, in Sumy — a regional capital close to the Russian border that has been repeatedly targeted since the early stages of the war — Russian guided aerial bombs struck the Kovpakivskyi and Zarichnyi districts, hitting both residential and industrial areas. The final toll stood at one person dead and nine injured, including two children, with two homes fully destroyed, ten others damaged and an educational facility also hit. Emergency crews searched through the wreckage, extinguished fires and worked to clear the affected areas.

The strikes are part of a broader, sustained Russian campaign of aerial attacks against Ukrainian population centres. In a separate incident, at least five people were injured, including three children, when Russian drones struck the Kyiv region on a day when polling stations opened in Russia for the country's first parliamentary elections since the start of the war. Earlier in the week, a Russian missile and drone barrage on the capital and surrounding areas injured at least 19 people overnight.

The pattern of strikes targeting civilian infrastructure — apartment buildings, homes and schools — has drawn repeated international condemnation. The US House of Representatives recently passed a broad package of sanctions targeting Russian officials and key sectors of the Russian economy, a legislative move aimed at cutting off financial resources used to sustain the military campaign.