In March 2025, as Ukrainian forces made their closing retreat from Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, new gray spots started to appear on open-source maps on the opposite aspect of the state border, in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast.
For the primary time since 2022, when Moscow’s forces retreated frantically from northern Ukraine, Russian troops have as soon as once more set their sights on Sumy Oblast.
However for months, as Kyiv continued to say maintain of a skinny sliver of Kursk Oblast and Russia’s spring offensive escalated in japanese Ukraine, the combating across the border in Sumy Oblast was typically missed.
Over June, Russian positive aspects in Sumy Oblast have sped up considerably, taking a number of villages and coming inside 20 kilometers of the regional capital of Sumy, in keeping with territorial adjustments reported by open-source mapping undertaking DeepState.
As of June 12, combating has been reported to have begun for the village of Yunakivka, a key cease on the cross-border freeway between Sudzha and Sumy and a staging level for Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast.
Over spring and summer season, this a part of the entrance line has been topic to strict restrictions on media entry, with journalists barred from working with the navy north of Sumy.
On June 12, President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned that Ukrainian forces had managed to “push the enemy again” in some components of Sumy Oblast, however these territorial adjustments are up to now not possible to confirm.
Chatting with journalists on June 13, Zelensky mentioned that the Russian advance on Sumy Oblast “had been stopped” no deeper than seven kilometers contained in the Ukrainian border, including that some floor had been regained across the village of Andriivka.
Murky intentions
With Russia now holding over 200 sq. kilometers in Sumy Oblast, just like that seized within the cross-border offensive on Kharkiv Oblast in Could 2024, evaluations of the operation are torn between it being a restricted escalation of combating within the border zone or a significant new Russian push.
Not lengthy after launching the Kursk incursion final summer season, Kyiv claimed that a part of the offensive’s purpose was to create a “buffer zone” to guard Sumy Oblast, though in actuality, the spike in Ukrainian navy exercise noticed elevated Russian strikes on border settlements the place Ukrainian troops and tools had been based mostly.
After coming back from a go to to Kursk Oblast in Could, Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the creation of a “safety buffer zone” of his personal alongside Ukraine’s northern state border.
The sentiment was repeated on June 11 by Alexei Zhuravlev, first deputy head of the Russian State Duma’s protection committee, including that Russia was not seeking to take all of Sumy Oblast (which isn’t one of many 5 areas illegally claimed by Moscow).
“A buffer zone of 100 kilometers alongside the Russian border will probably be sufficient,” Zhuravlev mentioned. “Allow them to evacuate, retreat in worry, ready in every single place for the assault of the Russian military.”
Even when Moscow needed to, mounting a direct assault on a big metropolis like Sumy – with a pre-war inhabitants of 255,000 – would nearly definitely be out of the attain of Russia’s capabilities for the second, mentioned analyst Emil Kastehelmi, a member of the Finland-based open-source intelligence collective Black Chook Group.
“The Russians haven't been in a position to truly seize any bigger cities in Ukraine since 2022 (with the encircling and seize of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast),” he mentioned.
“What they will do is put heavy strain on the Sumy path and attempt to achieve as a lot land as doable, with a purpose to convey Sumy into vary of artillery and drones, tying Ukrainian troops into defensive battles and giving Russia some leverage in upcoming negotiations.”
Unrelenting strain
Russia’s push in Sumy Oblast comes amid a broader spring-summer offensive that has additionally seen important positive aspects in Donetsk Oblast, particularly on both flank of the embattled metropolis of Pokrovsk.
With the Ukrainian military considerably overstretched alongside tons of of kilometers of entrance line and affected by continual manpower shortages, particularly within the infantry, Russia’s strain on Sumy Oblast creates extra dilemmas.
“The Russians are probably making an attempt to create as many points for the Ukrainians as doable in a number of instructions concurrently,” Kastehelmi mentioned.
“They purpose to create a cascading state of affairs the place the Ukrainians have to reply to a disaster in a sure sector by throwing in models from one other place, leading to models not having the ability to do correct rotations.”
Nonetheless, with Russian forces counting on the identical formulation of creeping, infantry-based assaults employed all throughout a drone-saturated entrance line, sustaining strain additionally comes with sacrifices made in offensive potential elsewhere.
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Chatting with the Kyiv Unbiased, Volodymyr Martyniak, an organization commander within the twenty second Particular Function Battalion of Ukraine’s 1st Presidential Brigade, mentioned that Russia’s most important benefit in Sumy Oblast remained their potential to ship wave after wave of lightly-mounted infantry on the Ukrainian protection.
“They’re being organized into ultra-minimal groups, of simply a few individuals, utilizing the naked minimal of apparatus,” he mentioned,” issues like quad bikes, different motorized automobiles, bikes to maneuver rapidly by tough terrain.”
In keeping with Martyniak, Russian forces within the space use a mixture of expendable, cannon-fodder fashion infantry troops within the first waves of an assault, that are then adopted by extra skilled troopers, demonstrating ways refined for the reason that Battle of Bakhmut over two years in the past.
“At first, troopers go in merely to maneuver ahead and dig in,” he described.
“Then, as soon as sufficient of them have gathered in a sure space, sufficient to justify bringing in one thing extra severe, a extra superior, better-trained, and correspondingly extra skilled unit follows.”
The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell
Faltering fortifications
Simply as when Russian troops broke throughout the border towards Kharkiv final Could, the present advance in Sumy has raised issues among the many navy and society in regards to the preparedness of Ukrainian fortifications alongside the state border.
As per the Protection Ministry’s fortification-building initiative specified by late 2023 and executed over 2024, whereas Ukrainian brigades and fight engineers would construct the 2 strains of protection closest to the enemy, the third and strongest line of protection can be constructed by civilian contractors coordinated and paid for by regional administrations.
Fairly than coherent strains of protection, these fortifications had been constructed round platoon strongpoints — particular person fortresses consisting of a number of strengthened concrete bunkers related by trenches.
However as in Kharkiv and Donetsk oblasts, these fortifications have been criticized as poorly designed and constructed. Trenches and platoon strongpoints deliberate in 2024 had been typically constructed in open fields, with little regard for concealment or safety from drones.
One Ukrainian fight medic, who requested to stay nameless for safety causes, mentioned that in comparison with areas in Donetsk Oblast the place fortifications had been constructed upfront even when not ideally, nothing of the like could possibly be seen in Sumy Oblast.
Though defending Ukrainian territory was simpler than holding positions throughout the border due to higher logistics routes, he mentioned, there have been nonetheless little to no ready strains of protection ready for them after the withdrawal.
Finally, the energy of any line of protection depends not solely on the fortifications themselves, however on the power of the defending aspect to man them with sufficient fight efficient infantry.
Extra losses amongst Ukrainian models holding Kursk Oblast, the place Ukrainian commanders had reported politically-motivated orders to carry Russian territory regardless of logistics routes being managed by Russian drones, have made it simpler for Russian forces to proceed their advance throughout the border.
In these situations, Martyniak — whose battalion fought inside Kursk Oblast earlier than crossing the border — says the protection of territory inside Ukraine began straight after the withdrawal from Sudzha in March.
In keeping with the commander, Ukraine’s most important drawback in protection constantly stays the dearth of manpower within the infantry.
Efforts have been made to enhance coaching and focus extra on replenishing current brigades quite than creating new ones, however by 2025, nearly all new Ukrainian squaddies are mobilized quite than volunteer troopers.
In the meantime, because the skies above the entrance line change into extra saturated with enemy drones with every passing month, the expertise of the foot soldier solely will get deadlier and tougher.
“Replenishments are available in, however they have to be educated, they have to be skilled, and, let’s say, they should have some type of motivation,” Martyniak mentioned.
The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima
New threats
Additional Russian positive aspects towards Sumy may progressively convey the town into vary of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which Russian forces typically use not solely to chop off enemy logistics, however to make whole cities unlivable by focusing on civilian automobiles, as has been executed with Kherson within the south.
With Russian forces continuously enhancing the vary of their FPV drones, together with these operating on unjammable fiber optic connections, the primary such drones may fly into Sumy sooner quite than later.
Current strikes more and more deep behind Ukrainian strains in Donetsk Oblast together with on the cities of Sloviansk and Druzhkivka have proven how FPV drones can fly additional and additional into the Ukrainian rear even when the entrance line itself doesn’t transfer a lot.
Over 2025, amid Sumy’s growing proximity to the entrance line and continued intense combating alongside the border has seen the town topic to strikes from different weapons, together with a missile strike in April that killed 35 individuals and wounded 129.
On June 4, Russia struck Sumy with multiple-launch rocket methods, killing 4 and wounding 28, within the first assault with this sort of weapon recorded on the town because it was nearly surrounded by Russian forces on the onset of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Because the summer season marketing campaign in Ukraine heats up, Sumy Oblast threatens to change into a brand new common hotspot alongside the entrance line, whether or not or not Russian forces can sustain their tempo of assault.
“Their actual benefit right here is that they’ve a large navy useful resource, before everything — a really giant one,” mentioned Martyniak, “the enemy, as at all times, is build up its forces; they don’t stand nonetheless, issues are at all times in movement on their aspect, they usually’re continuously developing with one thing new.”
“We, for our half, additionally attempt to reply with the identical abilities, the identical expertise, the identical functionality; we’re finishing up our missions and holding the road with dignity.”
Notice from the creator:
Hello, that is Francis Farrell, and thanks for studying this text. When eager about a significant new entrance opening in Sumy Oblast, I can solely hope that Zelensky is correct when he says that Russia's advance has been stopped, and that similar to with Kharkiv Oblast final yr, the strains will stabilize and no extra crimson will seem on the map within the space. Hope is sweet, however no matter occurs Russia solely stops if they’re stopped, and that comes at a worth. For that purpose, we is not going to cease what we’re doing for a minute. Please think about supporting our reporting.