Russia seeks to carve buffer zone in northern Sumy province, says governor

Russia is seeking to carve out a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy, according to the provincial governor.

Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram that Russia is attacking four villages of Zhuravka, Veselivka, Basivka, and Novenke, and they are currently in a “grey zone”.

Earlier, Russia claimed to have seized control of Zhuravka and Basivka, but Ukraine denied that none of these four villages had been lost to Russia.

“Currently, the enemy continues to try to carve out a buffer zone on the territory of our region, but has not had any significant success,” said Hryhorov.

The idea behind the push in Sumy appears to be to create a buffer zone to stop any incursion from Ukraine into Kursk — Sumy borders Kursk.

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For months, Ukraine has warned of Russian attacks in Sumy from Kursk and Belgorod regions of Russia.

The development comes at a time when US President Donald Trump appears to be frustrated with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin for not accepting a peace deal. In his latest attempt to strike peace, he floated a seven-point peace proposal. Ukraine rejected it as it sought to recognise all provinces annexed by Russia. However, Russia rejected as the proposal did not cover its maximalist demands in entirety.

Russia has also rejected all three US-endorsed temporary ceasefire proposals — Ukraine has accepted all three proposals.

While Trump has always been harsh on Ukraine and the nation’s leader, Zelenskyy, he has lately expressed mild disappointment with Putin as well. He has wondered in public remarks whether Putin is playing with him. However, unlike the time he suspended aid to Ukraine and called for Zelenskyy’s ouster, he has not taken any action to punish Russia or Putin.

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Last year, Ukraine invaded Kursk and captured large swathes of territory. It also captured territory in neighbouring Belgorod region. However, Russia has now recaptured most of territory in these two regions. The idea behind Ukranian assaults inside Russia was to exchange captured Russian land for Russian-controlled Ukrainian in any peace negotiations.

DeepState, an open-source analyst focussed on Ukraine, said that around 52 sq km of the Sumy region are in the contested “grey zone”, according to Reuters.