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Russian attack on Sumy Oblast kills civilian

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Russian attack on Sumy Oblast kills civilian
Aftermath of the Russian attack on an apartment building in Sumy overnight on March 13, 2024. (Ukraine's State Emergency Service)

Editor's note: The article initially mistakingly said that the civilian casualty was reported in the Bilopillia community.

Russian forces attacked Sumy Oblast 30 times in 90 separate attacks throughout the day, killing one person, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported on March 19.

According to the Administration's statement, an individual was killed as a result of air strikes in the Velyka Pysarivka community.  

Russia targeted six other communities in Sumy Oblast on March 19, including Khotin, Krasnopillia, Velyka Pysarivka, Seredyna-Buda, Svesa, and Znob-Novhorodske.

Residents across the seven communities faced mortar, helicopter, artillery, tank, drone, and grenade launcher attacks. Mines were also dropped by drones onto Znob-Novhorodske.

The town of Bilopillia, with a pre-war population of about 15,600, experienced the bulk of the attacks, with 53 explosions reported in the area. The community is 43 kilometers away from the Ukraine-Russia border.

In recent weeks, Russian assaults on Sumy Oblast have escalated in their destructive impact.

During the early hours of March 6, a drone strike launched by Russian forces in Sumy wounded four civilians and inflicted extensive damage on private residences, schools, and medical facilities. Another assault on March 7 claimed the lives of two people and left 26 others wounded, with six civilians requiring hospitalization.

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Rachel Amran

News Editor

Rachel Amran is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked on the Europe and Central Asia team of Human Rights Watch investigating war crimes in Ukraine. Rachel holds a master's degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Regional Studies from Columbia University.

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