Ukrainian police officer shields injured nine-year-old boy with his body during repeat Russian drone strike in Sumy Oblast

A police officer in Ukraine's Sumy Oblast used his own body to shield an injured nine-year-old boy when Russian forces launched a second drone strike on a residential area, Ukraine's National Police has reported.

The incident unfolded in the early hours of 14 November in the city of Hlukhiv. Police received a report that an unmanned aerial vehicle had hit a house, and officers who arrived at the scene found the building engulfed in flames after a fire spread from an outbuilding.

Neighbours told the officers that a 54-year-old woman and her grandson might still be inside. One officer broke windows to try to get into the house while his colleague went around the building searching for another way in.

In the back garden, the second officer found the woman and the boy lying on the ground. The grandmother was bleeding heavily, and the officer applied a tourniquet to her leg. "I thought I was going to die. Thank you, Mr Policeman," the boy told him.

At that moment, the group heard another drone approaching. The officer tried to move the woman and child to a safer place, but there was no time. Instead, he covered the boy with his body as the drone struck.

The second attack injured the officer and caused further injuries to the woman. The boy had been hurt only in the first strike. Despite his own wounds, the officer and his colleague helped the two civilians into a car and drove them to hospital.

All three, the woman, her grandson and the officer, are now receiving medical treatment.

Praising the response, the police said the officers had acted quickly and decisively despite the danger to their own lives, adding that their swift actions had saved the woman and child.

Hlukhiv lies in Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine, close to the Russian border, and the region has repeatedly come under Russian drone and missile attacks.