MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia stated on Friday its forces have been persevering with to create a “safety strip” in border areas of Ukraine’s Sumy area after driving Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk area, simply throughout the border in western Russia.
Ukraine says its forces nonetheless have a foothold in Kursk, the place it staged an incursion in August to attempt to distract Russian forces and win leverage in any future peace talks, however that it’s involved a few doable Russian advance into Sumy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in March that Russia ought to look to create a buffer zone within the Sumy area to protect in opposition to any future potential Ukrainian incursions.
“Models of the North group of forces have accomplished the rout of Ukrainian Armed Forces formations within the Kursk area,” the Russian defence ministry stated in a press release.
“The creation of a ‘safety strip’ within the border areas of Ukraine’s Sumy area continues.”
Two Majors, a Russian warfare blogger with over 1.2 million subscribers, stated Russia was creating an offensive from Zhuravka to Bilovody, two villages simply over the border in Sumy.
“Our paratroopers, having damaged the cussed resistance of the enemy, superior within the space of Loknya and within the border forest belts” within the Sumy area, the blogger wrote on Friday.
A commander of a Russian airborne assault brigade instructed the TASS state information company that Ukrainian troops combating in Sumy have been demoralised.
“We’ve got disorganised their command system,” the commander was quoted as saying.
Reuters was unable to confirm the stories.
Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov stated on Tuesday that Russia was having little success in carving out a buffer zone however acknowledged that 4 border villages within the area – together with Zhuravka – have been in a “gray zone” on account of Russian assaults.
Deep State, a Ukrainian open-source information undertaking, indicated about 82 sq km of the Sumy area are in a contested zone.
Individually, the Russian defence ministry stated that its troops had seized 4 villages in Ukraine’s jap Donetsk and Kharkiv areas over the previous week.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Enhancing by Philippa Fletcher)
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