While much of global diplomacy as well as media coverage is currently focused on the now over week-long aerial war over the Middle East between Iran and Israel, President Vladimir Putin issued important remarks on the future of the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine before the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
He said in the Friday speech he does not “rule out” his forces taking control of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy amid the military initiative of creating a buffer zone along the border.
“We have no objective to take Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out… They pose a constant threat to us, constantly shelling the border areas,” Putin told the audience.
Starting in late May, Russian forces took control of the border villages of Novenke, Zhuravka, Veselivka, and Basivka, Hryhorov just inside Sumy Oblast as part of work on the buffer zone.
As for the city of Sumy, it lies just 18 lies from the Russian border and has suffered from intermittent aerial attacks and shelling since the war’s start.
Putin has also raised eyebrows in the West due to his speech when he said, “I consider Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. In that sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” he said, and added: “There is a saying: wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that is ours.”
This is being taken in the West as more confirmation that the US-backed peace process is struggling and barely alive, given neither side is in the mood to compromise.
Currently Russian troops are up to 12km inside Sumy Oblast, putting them very close to the administrative capital of the oblast by the same name. German publication DW reviews:
Sumy, though not among the five Ukrainian regions Moscow claims to have annexed — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea — has been a frequent target of Russian attacks.
It also served as a launching point for a Ukrainian counteroffensive into Russia’s western Kursk region last August, during which Kyiv’s forces briefly captured dozens of settlements before being pushed back by Russian troops — bolstered by thousands of North Korean soldiers, according to reports.
Russian forces have also most recently pushed beyond the western border of Donetsk and into the Dnepropetrovsk Region, again which also part of the push establish a “buffer zone” on the front line.
Russian media says troops advancing in Sumy, destroying NATO gear:
April, May, and early June have seen thousands of drones launched from Ukraine onto Russia’s southern oblasts, with some drones targeting as far as Moscow, which has resulted in commercial flight stoppages at several area airports. Ukraine’s ‘Operation Spider’s Web’ did the most damage among these attacks, targeting airfields hosting parked heavy bombers.
The timing of Putin’s buffer zone plan was very significant, given that President Trump is increasingly being perceived as ‘stepping back’ from pursuit of a final peace settlement, perhaps content to ‘let them fight it out’.
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