Russia says it is creating “security strip” in Ukraine's Sumy region

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — A Chechen marksman aims rifle during fighting in the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 31, 2022.  REUTERS/Chingis Kondarov

MOSCOW (Reuters) -     Russia said on Friday its forces were continuing to create a "security strip" in border areas of Ukraine's Sumy region after driving Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region, just across the border in western Russia.

Ukraine says its forces still have a foothold in Kursk, where it staged an incursion in August to try to distract Russian forces and win leverage in any future peace talks, but that it is concerned about a possible Russian advance into Sumy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that Russia should look to create a buffer zone in the Sumy region to guard against any future potential Ukrainian incursions.

"Units of the North group of forces have completed the rout of Ukrainian Armed Forces formations in the Kursk region," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

"The creation of a 'security strip' in the border areas of Ukraine's Sumy region continues."

Two Majors, a Russian war blogger with over 1.2 million subscribers, said Russia was developing an offensive from Zhuravka to Bilovody, two villages just over the border in Sumy.

"Our paratroopers, having broken the stubborn resistance of the enemy, advanced in the area of Loknya and in the border forest belts" in the Sumy region, the blogger wrote on Friday.

A commander of a Russian airborne assault brigade told the TASS state news agency that Ukrainian troops fighting in Sumy were demoralised.

"We have disorganised their command system," the commander was quoted as saying. 

Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Tuesday that Russia was having little success in carving out a buffer zone but acknowledged that four border villages in the region - including Zhuravka - were in a "grey zone" due to Russian attacks.

Deep State, a Ukrainian open-source data project, indicated about 82 sq km of the Sumy region are in a contested zone.

Separately, the Russian defence ministry said that its troops had seized four villages in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Kharkiv regions over the past week.

 (Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)