Despite Ukraine’s daring attacks, Russian forces advance on major city of Sumy

By Tim Lister, CNN, Svitlana Vlasova and Christian Edwards

(CNN) — Russian forces are advancing in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, bringing the regional capital within range of their drones and artillery, according to Ukrainian officials and analysts.

The advance comes even as Russia had appeared to be put on the back foot by two audacious Ukrainian attacks in recent days – a drone attack that took out multiple Russian aircraft on Sunday and a strike on a bridge connecting Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula using underwater explosives on Monday.

Russian forces are now constantly shelling the area as they try to advance on Sumy city, and civilians are being evacuated, according to Ivan Shevtsov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military in the area.

“At the moment, the territory that the enemy has already occupied is about 15 kilometers along the front line and about 6-7 kilometers deep,” Shevtsov said. He added that the Russians were trying to advance towards the town of Yunakivka, within a few kilometers of their current positions.

The Sumy military administration said that Russian troops had carried out almost 150 shelling attacks on 47 settlements in the region in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning.

For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that its forces had captured the village of Andriivka as they broadened the front, according to the official TASS news agency.

Shevtsov said that with further advances the Russians would be able to launch more coordinated attacks on Sumy city. Its current population is unknown, but before the war began it was home to about a quarter of a million people.

The unofficial Ukrainian group DeepState, which monitors the frontlines, reported that Russian forces had occupied another settlement in northern Sumy, putting them about 20 kilometers from Sumy city.

It said: “The situation in the north of the Sumy region continues to deteriorate due to constant pressure from the enemy and large numbers of infantry.”

“The threat of the enemy’s advance is that it will reach a distance of 20-25 kilometers, which will allow FPV drones to fly to the city of Sumy,” DeepState said.

It added that Ukrainian forces were unable to combat the Russians’ use of fiber-optic drones, which are capable of evading jamming.

“A separate issue is the lack of personnel to hold back the enemy, which is severely lacking,” DeepState said.

The Russians have reinforced their units in the area over recent weeks, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), since President Vladimir Putin visited the adjacent Russian region of Kursk in mid-May and ordered the creation of a buffer zone within Sumy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last month that Russia had amassed more than 50,000 troops near the Sumy region. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are stretched across multiple points on the front lines, from the northern border to the Black Sea.

ISW said Monday that Russian forces had recently intensified ground assaults and brought in several experienced brigades, including airborne troops.

Shevstov, the Ukrainian military spokesman, said Russian forces aimed “not just to enter and create a so-called buffer zone 20-30 kilometers deep, but to completely capture the Sumy region.”

Sumy city was targeted Tuesday by a rocket attack, which killed four people and injured 28, including three children, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service. Zelensky described it as “a savage strike…directly targeting the city and its ordinary streets with rocket artillery.”

On Monday, Zelensky described northern Sumy as one of the “hottest” parts of the front line.

Capturing Sumy’s regional capital is probably beyond the Russians – the terrain is thickly forested. But through their attacks, the Russian military can prevent the Ukrainians from redeploying units to Donetsk and elsewhere on the front line.

ISW noted Monday that “Russian forces have not seized a Ukrainian city with a pre-war population greater than 100,000 since July 2022.”

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