Russian shelling kills six civilians and injures 44 across Ukraine on 20 September

Russian military shelling on 20 September 2026 killed six civilians in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Sumy Regions, and injured at least 44 more, including in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts, the National Police reported.

The victims of the Russian strikes on 20 September were:

• a woman in Lozova in the Kharkiv Oblast;
• three people in Kramatorsk, Andriivka and Mykilske in the Donetsk Oblast;
• a man and a woman in the Sumy Oblast.

In the Donetsk Oblast, another 12 civilians were injured as a result of Russian strikes on 20 September.

Aftermath of Russian attack on Donetsk Oblast

Eight people were injured in each of the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, which Russian forces primarily targeted with airstrikes and attacks using various types of drones. Russian military personnel injured seven civilians in each of the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.

Another two adults and a teenager sustained injuries due to enemy strikes on the Sumy Oblast.

Ukrainian MP and member of the parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, Serhiy Rakhmanin, has stated that the increase in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s civil and logistics infrastructure is not merely a retaliatory measure, as some international media report, but a calculated strategy to precipitate a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

In an interview with Channel 24, Rakhmanin refuted the suggestion that Russia is simply responding to Ukrainian actions, stating that the intensification of attacks is largely due to the expanded mass production of Russian jet-propelled drones and Ukraine’s lack of Patriot air defence systems.

“As soon as they acquired more methods and opportunities to inflict strikes with impunity, their target selection expanded,” Rakhmanin said. “They would have done this regardless, because their ultimate goal is to quickly and deeply engineer a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine.”

Related: Russian attack hits WHO humanitarian warehouse in Kyiv Oblast for third time in three months

He further explained that this “humanitarian catastrophe” encompasses more than just the energy sector; it targets essential civilian needs, including the supply of medicines, food, and fuel.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, the WHO has verified more than 3,000 attacks on healthcare objects or sites, including strikes on health facilities, ambulances, medical supplies and warehouses.

Ukrainian experts point out that countries, including China, Greece, North Korea, Hungary, Slovakia, Iran, and Brazil, assist Moscow in killing Ukrainians in its war against Ukraine by funding the Russian budget through trade.

Human rights organisations and Ukrainian authorities emphasise that structural economic pressure remains a key tool to halt such atrocities. They urge every nation and individual government worldwide to strictly enforce global sanctions, close existing regulatory loopholes, and completely sever remaining commercial and technological ties with the Russian Federation. Civil society groups stress that any continued cooperation by foreign businesses directly contributes to the resources Moscow uses to sustain its ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

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