2 Dead From Russian Mortar Shelling In Kharkiv Region

Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on September 20 killed two people and injured five, while a missile strike in Dnipro caused at least one injury, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian forces used mortars to shell villages in the Kharkiv region, taking the lives of a 43-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman, said Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov. Two other women were injured. An earlier attack on other villages left two woman and a man injured, he said.

In Dnipro, one person was injured and a building was partially destroyed in an attack that occurred in the evening of September 20 after the air force warned of the threat of a strike with a ballistic weapon, the head of the regional military administration said.

"The building of an educational center was partially destroyed,” said Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration head Serhiy Lysak. He identified the injured person as a 19-year-old boy who suffered multiple wounds and a fracture.

Russian forces who occupy the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant accused Ukrainian forces on September 20 of launching a drone attack on a nearby electricity substation and posing a threat to the facility.

"A drone strike by the Ukrainian armed forces damaged a transformer at the Zarya substation located right next to the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhya station," the Russian management of the plant said on Telegram.

"This substation contributes to power supplies for the station's infrastructure. Attacking it creates a potential threat to the nuclear power station's safety," the message said.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Russian forces seized the nuclear power plant in the early days of Moscow's full-scale invasion, and the two sides have regularly accused the other of staging attacks that endanger safety.

The UN nuclear watchdog has stationed monitors permanently at the plant and urged both sides to refrain from all attacks on it.

Meanwhile, a project to record the number of Russian servicemen killed in the war said on September 20 that the estimate now exceeds 70,000.

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Mediazona and the Russian service of the BBC have been tallying the number of Russian military deaths by conducting a name-by-name count of losses. Those counted are only the ones whose names could be established from open sources. The real number of Russian battlefield deaths is likely much higher.

According to the data, the average Russian fighter has recently changed. A typical serviceman whose death was confirmed in 2022 was about 21 years old, and he served in elite units such as special forces, airborne forces, or marines.

“Today men are increasingly going to the front aged 40, 50, and even 60 years, most often without combat experience and special training," according to the data.