Russia's military kept up its relentless artillery bombardment of civilian-populated areas as the death toll from fighting in the east and south of Ukraine continued to climb amid what Kyiv said were failed attempts by Russian forces to gain ground.
Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, said one of the most densely populated areas of Ukraine's second-largest city was being shelled, while the regional governor said two people had been killed and 19 wounded. Russia denies targeting civilians.
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Russian forces also bombarded a residential area of Nikopol, a city south of Zaporizhzhya, killing at least two civilians and wounding nine others overnight, including several children.
The head of the military administration of the eastern Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, urged people to evacuate, saying Russian forces had destroyed schools in Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka and shelled the industrial part of Kramatorsk and central Bakhmut.
Vitaly Kim, head of the southern Mykolayiv region's administration, said it had been targeted with seven S300 missiles, with one person wounded and damage done to infrastructure, energy facilities, and storage areas.
Ukraine's armed forces said they engaged Russian troops in the south and east of the country, killing more than 100 enemy combatants.
The Ukrainian military also reported heavy Russian shelling on the front line in the east amid what they said were largely failed attempts by Russian ground forces to advance.
The Russian-installed administration in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhya said Ukraine had conducted a drone strike on a nuclear power station there but the reactor was not damaged.
The reports could not be independently verified.
British military intelligence, meanwhile, said on July 21 that Russian forces and Moscow-backed separatists continue to attempt small-scale assaults along the front line in the east.
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Russian forces are likely closing in on Ukraine’s second-biggest power plant at Vuhlehyrska, some 50 kilometers northeast of Donetsk, as Moscow appears to be prioritizing the capture of critical national infrastructure, British intelligence said in its daily bulletin.
The latest fighting came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on July 20 that the Kremlin has expanded its military "tasks" in Ukraine beyond the eastern Donbas region and will keep pushing further if the West continues to supply Kyiv with modern long-range weapons such as the U.S.-made high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS).
Following Lavrov's remarks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on July 20 that Washington will send four more HIMARS units to Ukraine, telling journalists at the Pentagon that Ukraine has made excellent use of the HIMARS the United States has sent thus far.
"Russia is keeping up its relentless shelling, and that's a cruel tactic that harkens back to the horrors of World War I. So Ukraine needs the firepower and the ammunition to withstand this barrage and to strike back," he said.
The Ukrainian armed forces said on July 21 that in the previous 24 hours they had killed 111 Russian troops and destroyed 17 vehicles, some of them armored.
Meanwhile, CIA Director William Burns said the United States estimates Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded.
Russia classifies military deaths as state secrets even in times of peace and has not updated its official casualty figures frequently during the war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said later on July 20 in his nightly address that Ukraine is working on also obtaining air defense systems from its Western partners.
He said the provision of such systems depends "on political decisions that can be made in key capitals," and noted that his wife, first lady Olena Zelenska, had made air defense part of her appeal when she spoke on July 20 to U.S. lawmakers.
EU diplomats meeting in Brussels agreed a new batch of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on gold imports and freezing the assets of top lender Sberbank. But Zelenskiy dismissed the sanctions as inadequate.
"Russia must feel a much higher price for the war to force it to seek peace," Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address.