Russian shelling of Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast injures 2.

Russian forces carried out an artillery strike against Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct.

19, injuring two men aged 74 and 69, the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration reported. The city came under Russian attacks at 12 p.m., resulting in damage to residential and commercial buildings and cars, the regional prosecutor's office said. The strike started an extensive fire in the yard of one of the houses, which has already been extinguished by emergency services, according to local officials.

Russia also targeted the villages of Pidlyman and Pisky-Radkivski in the Izium district of the same oblast with multiple-launch rocket systems Smerch, damaging several houses, the prosecutors reported. The town of Vovchansk, with a pre-war population of 18,000, lies roughly 50 kilometers northeast of Kharkiv and only around five kilometers south of the Russian border. The settlement suffers regular strikes by Russian forces.

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News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent.

He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press.

He also volunteers as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukrainer.

Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.