Amid intense fighting in Donetsk on January 19, a shell hit a hospital located in a separatist-held area. The cardiology department was destroyed, and other parts of the hospital were also damaged. A number of the patients were evacuated to another hospital in the city.
Donetsk Hospital Hit By Shelling
RFE/RL's Georgian Service reports that another Georgian has been killed fighting in Ukraine:
TBILISI -- A Georgian man fighting on the Ukrainian side in the conflict in Ukraine has been killed in combat near the Donetsk airport, according to relatives.
Media reports in Georgia quote members of Tamaz Sukhiashvili's family as saying he was killed in a battle near the bitterly contested airport on January 17.
Sukhiashvili is the third Georgian national known to have been killed in the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government forces.
Aleksandr Grigolashvili, who also fought on the Ukrainian side, was killed in the Luhansk region last month.
Shalva Bukhaidze, fighting on the side of pro-Russian separatists, was killed earlier in January.
Reports have said that there are many people from former Soviet republics fighting in the conflict, which has killed more than 4,700 people since April.
Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Moscow says EU holding to "unfriendly course":
Russia says a European Union decision to keep sanctions against Russia in place shows the EU is not ready to change an "unfriendly course" toward Moscow.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made the comment on January 20, a day after the EU said sanctions against Russia could only be eased if there were improvements on the ground in eastern Ukraine, where government forces are fighting rebels Kyiv and NATO say have direct military support from Moscow.
The EU's decision "only confirms the fact that the EU is still not ready to alter its unfriendly course or to give an objective assessment of the Kyiv authorities' actions," the ministry said in a statement.
EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said after EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on January 19 the situation in eastern Ukraine was "much worse than last week."
She ruled out relaxing sanctions against Russia before Moscow implements measures agreed in a cease-fire dead signed in Minsk on September 5.
Red Cross concerned over "escalation" in east:
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed deep concern over what it said was the "escalation" of violence between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks.
In a January 20 statement, the ICRC said the fighting in and around the city of Donetsk was killing civilians and "preventing" its team from carrying out its humanitarian work.
The Red Cross said that "harsh winter conditions and the suspension of benefit payments" in some parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are making the situation "even more difficult."
It said it was distributing food, hygiene items, medical supplies, and construction materials to both residents and displaced people in the two regions, which are partly held by the rebels.
The organization also said it started this month to visit people held in prisons in Donetsk that are not under the control of the Ukrainian authorities.