What 24 March 2025 showed across Ukraine's regions
A look back at a day of strikes on Sumy, Luhansk Oblast, Zaporizhzhia and Pokrovsk, and what they showed about the regional picture.
What did a single day reveal about how the war touched Ukraine's regions? On 24 March 2025, the answer ran from the north-east to the east and south, with civilian harm in Sumy and a deadly strike in Luhansk Oblast.
Sumy: a hospital, a school and homes
In Sumy, a Russian missile attack hit a hospital, a school and a residential area on 24 March 2025. Ninety people were injured, including 17 children. Sumy is the capital of Sumy Oblast, parts of which Russian forces occupied after the invasion began on 24 February 2022. Russian forces failed to capture the city itself, though settlements such as Trostianets were taken.
Luhansk Oblast: a strike that killed journalists
On the same day, a Ukrainian artillery strike in Luhansk Oblast killed six people. Among them were several journalists from Russia's Izvestia newspaper and the Zvezda state media network. The oblast has been the setting of a military campaign since 19 September 2022 along a frontline in its western parts and in far-eastern parts of Kharkiv Oblast. That line has been called the Svatove–Kreminna line, after the settlements along it.
The day before, on 23 March 2025, Ukrainian troops reportedly recaptured the village of Nadiia in Luhansk Oblast. Together, the two reports showed activity on both sides of that front within a short span.
The days before: Zaporizhzhia and Pokrovsk
The 24 March reports followed other strikes. On 22 March 2025, an overnight Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia killed three people and wounded twelve. Several apartments in residential areas were targeted.
The same day, Russian artillery fired on Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, killing three people and injuring one. Pokrovsk was the primary target, together with Myrnohrad, of a Russian offensive in western Donetsk Oblast. Fighting there had intensified after Russian forces advanced into and captured Prohres on 18 and 19 July 2024.
What the pattern showed
The reports from 22 to 24 March 2025 covered four oblasts: Sumy, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk. In three of them, the casualties were in residential or public settings: apartments in Zaporizhzhia, a town under artillery fire in Pokrovsk, and a hospital, school and homes in Sumy. In Luhansk Oblast, the casualties were journalists from Russian outlets, and the strike was Ukrainian. For regional authorities and residents, the common thread was the scale of harm in a span of three days: at least 12 people killed in the incidents on 22 and 24 March, and well over a hundred injured or wounded, counting the 90 hurt in Sumy alone.
