Home › World › What happened on 21 February 2020 in Idlib and Ukraine?
What happened on 21 February 2020 in Idlib and Ukraine?
Summary
A retrospective on reports from 20 February 2020: fighting in north-western Syria involving Turkey, and unrest over evacuees from China in a Ukrainian village.
What was happening in the reports available on 21 February 2020? Two separate stories stood out: escalating fighting in north-western Syria and a protest in Ukraine that left people injured.
Turkey and Russia in Idlib
As reported on 20 February 2020, Turkish-backed rebels launched an offensive in Syria's Idlib Governorate against government forces. A Russian air strike killed two Turkish soldiers and injured five others. Turkey said a retaliatory strike killed 50 Syrian troops. Several tanks and armoured personnel carriers were destroyed near the village of Nayrab.
The fighting was part of the north-western Syria offensive, which ran from December 2019 to March 2020. On the same day, Turkey formally asked its NATO ally, the United States, to deploy Patriot surface-to-air missile systems on the Syria–Turkey border. The aim, as stated, was to deter Syrian and Russian air strikes on Turkish troops.
Protest in Novi Sanzhary
In Ukraine, protests in Novi Sanzhary against the arrival of people evacuated from China damaged buses. Ten people were injured, according to reports from 20 February 2020.
The two stories were unconnected, but both were reported on the same day: one a military confrontation involving Turkey, Russia and Syrian government forces, the other a local protest over evacuees in a Ukrainian village.
