Russian President Vladimir Putin in an undoubtedly orchestrated May 20 meeting with officials from the Kursk region tried to justify renewed efforts to seize Sumy City and potentially annex the Sumy region, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The city of Sumy lies just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border with Ukraine, and a buffer zone encompassing it would hamper Kyiv’s ability to launch tube artillery or tactical drone strikes into Russian territory.
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According to the ISW report the head of Glushkovsky Raion, Pavel Zolotarev, requested that Russia create a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory during the meeting,.
In response, Putin asked how deep this buffer should be to which Zolotarev replied that Russia should seize “at least Sumy (City)” and implied Russia “should be bigger.”
The acting Kursk regional governor Alexander Khinshtein later supported the idea, writing on Telegram that his grandfather was from the Sumy region, so “this land is not foreign to [us].”
The ISW noted that Russia’s negotiating team also threatened to seize Sumy Oblast during the May 16 talks with Ukraine in Istanbul.
“The Kremlin likely arranged the interaction at the May 20 meeting in order to frame Putin as an effective and engaged wartime leader,” while masking military failures ISW wrote, before adding that this may be part of a broader plan to claim more Ukrainian land through future negotiations.
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Putin’s visit marked his first to Kursk Oblast since Russia claimed military victory in the region on April 26. Despite this, Ukrainian forces still reportedly maintain limited positions on Russian soil. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed on May 21 that combat operations in this Russian region continue.
Putin also discussed further federal support and increased demining operations for Kursk with Khinshtein.
Military observers and analysts, however, doubt Russia has the capability to take Sumy in the near term. Ukrainian analyst Kostyantyn Mashovets said the Russian 18th and 72nd Motorized Rifle Divisions, along with the 83rd Separate Airborne Brigade, are operating in the Sumy direction. He also noted that up to five mobilized rifle regiments have been deployed in the area.
The ISW assessed that these forces are insufficient for an assault on Sumy, a city with a pre-war population of 256,000. Since 2022, Russia has failed to capture any Ukrainian city of comparable size, and even the seizure of Lysychansk – a smaller city – required months of grinding combat.
“Russian forces have since struggled to seize much smaller settlements… despite using larger numbers of forces,” ISW wrote.
Ukrainian officials have also repeatedly expressed doubt that Russia could launch an effective offensive against Sumy, stressing that any such attempt would likely prove costly and slow-moving.
In early April, Ukraine’s Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, stated that Russia had effectively begun a new offensive targeting the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
He said that Russia seeks to establish a buffer zone along Ukraine’s northern border, including in the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions.
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