Russia Strikes Northeastern Sumy Region, Injuring 14: Ukrainian Prime Minister

Russia’s defense ministry said that its Sever Group of Forces ‘inflicted losses on [Ukrainian] manpower and hardware.’

Smoke billows from a residential building after a missile attack in Sumy, Ukraine, on March 24, 2025. Yevhen Abrasimov/AFP

An overnight Russian drone attack injured 14 people in Ukraine’s Sumy region and destroyed more than a dozen private homes, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has said.

“Russia continues to manifest its fears through acts of pure terrorism across Ukraine, once again targeting the homes of families and their sleeping children,” Svyrydenko wrote in an Aug. 20 statement on X. “Among the regions targeted overnight was Okhtyrka in Sumy region, where a residential neighborhood was hit.”

Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Ukrainian prosecutors based in the area said that Russia had fired 15 drones at Okhtyrka in the early hours of Aug. 20.

Over the same period, Russia fired a total of 93 drones—along with two missiles—at targets across the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

One of the missiles and 62 drones were downed by Ukrainian air defenses, while 20 targeted locations were hit, the air force said.

In its daily report for Aug. 19, the Russian Ministry of Defence said that its Sever Group of Forces had “inflicted losses on [Ukrainian] manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade, one assault brigade, one assault regiment of the AFU, and one territorial defence brigade” in five areas of the Sumy region. The defense ministry did not mention Okhtyrka by name.

Since Russia launched its invasion in 2022, it has carried out strikes on targets across Ukraine with increasing frequency, typically using missiles and drones.

Moscow has said that it uses precision weapons against exclusively military targets in Ukraine to avoid civilian casualties.

Last week, Russia’s Federal Security Service said that it had destroyed four Ukrainian missile production sites, including two in the Sumy region, in a joint operation with Russia’s defense ministry, according to Russia’s state-run news agency TASS. That claim was later denied by Kyiv.

The Epoch Times could not independently verify claims made by either side of the ongoing conflict.

On Aug. 18, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Kyiv was behind an attack that choked off Russian crude oil supplies to Hungary.

“Ukraine has again attacked the petroleum pipeline to Hungary, cutting off supplies,” Szijjarto said in a social media post. “This latest strike against our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable!”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded to Szijjarto by criticizing the amicable relations between Hungary and Russia. He did not directly deny the alleged Ukrainian role in the pipeline attack.

“You can now send your complaints—and threats—to your friends in Moscow,” Sybiha wrote in a post on X.

Ground Fighting

In August 2024, Kyiv carried out a surprise cross-border offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region, which shares a lengthy border with Sumy.

In April, Ukrainian forces were largely driven from Kursk, after which Moscow announced plans to create a buffer zone in Sumy to prevent future cross-border attacks.

In June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia has amassed more than 50,000 troops in the border region.

According to Ukraine’s DeepState war blog, which tracks developments along the frontline and relies on open-source data, Russian forces now control about 75 square miles of territory in Sumy.

A Ukrainian tank passes a burning car in the Sumy region near the Russia–Ukraine border on Aug. 14, 2024. AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

The region has seen fierce fighting in recent days, with both sides claiming modest territorial gains.

On Aug. 16, Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces in Sumy had been pushed roughly 1.2 miles back along the frontline.

Intense fighting, it added, remained underway in two villages—Oleksiivka and Yunakivka—near the border with Russia.

Moscow did not acknowledge the alleged territorial loss.

On Aug. 20, TASS reported that Ukraine’s military command was in the process of withdrawing some of its forces from Sumy amid steadily escalating casualties.

Reuters contributed to this report.