The Russians have fired 54 times on hromadas in Sumy Oblast over the past 24 hours, injuring four civilians [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories - ed.
Russia targeted a total of 11 Ukrainian oblasts — Poltava, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Sumy. Casualties were reported in the latter four regions.
Two civilians were killed in a Russian air and artillery strike on Nova Sloboda hromada in Sumy Oblast on the morning of 20 February [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories - ed.
"As a result of the attack, a family has died: a mother and her two sons, as well as two of their distant relatives – a grandmother and a woman who came from another city," regional authorities said.
Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Feb. 20 that he appealed to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to investigate the killings of Ukrainian prisoners of war at the Zenit strongpoint in Avdiivka. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Avdiivka just north of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 17 after months of resisting Russia’s intensified offensive against the town.