Russia announced today that it has captured another village in the Ukrainian Sumy region, where Kiev fears a full-scale Russian offensive and ordered a new evacuation, reported Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
Despite the intensification of diplomatic contacts to find a way out of the war, the fighting in Ukraine continues to intensify.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement that Russian forces have captured the village of Vodolagi in Sumy region, near the Russian border, as well as the village of Novopol, in Volnovakha district, in the eastern part of Donetsk region.
Most of the fighting is concentrated in the Eastern Ukraine, but Kiev fears a new Russian offensive in the Sumy region.
A large-scale Russian offensive would pose a major challenge to the Ukrainian army, which is poorly equipped and already struggling on the front line, AFP reports.
This week, Russia announced the capture of several villages near its border in the Sumy region.
Experts believe that Russia wants to create a buffer zone to prevent Ukrainian troops from invading its territory, as happened last summer in the Kursk region.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 troops in preparation for a possible offensive in the region.
The Sumy region administration announced today the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages near the border.
Local authorities did not mention a Russian offensive, but justified their decision by saying that "the lives of the civilian population are under constant threat from the bombing". According to regional authorities, a total of 213 settlements in the region have already been ordered to evacuate.
The decision to evacuate a village is usually made when fighting intensifies, but does not necessarily mean that the Russian army is preparing to take it, AFP notes.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian paratroopers, working in coordination with units attached to them, have captured a group of Russian soldiers in the Kursk sector of the front, the Communications Directorate of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command reported on "Facebook", quoted by the Ukrinform agency.
According to the statement of the Ukrainian military, the captured Russian soldiers claim that they were subjected to psychological pressure and threats from their own commanders. Ukrainian forces have provided the prisoners with the necessary medical and psychological assistance. Russian soldiers may possibly be included in future prisoner exchanges for Ukrainian soldiers held in Russian captivity, Ukrinform notes.
On May 25, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that during operations in the Kursk sector, Ukrainian forces captured 971 Russian servicemen, Ukrinform notes.
The Russian army is conducting active offensive operations in the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia region, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, announced in his report for May, BNR reported.
"The enemy's main efforts are concentrated in the Pokrovskoye, Toretsky, Limanskoye and Novopavlovsk directions, as well as in the regions of Sumy region bordering Russia," Syrsky also pointed out.
The head of the military administration in Sumy region, Oleg Grigorov, ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 more settlements due to constant shelling from the Russian side.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its troops had captured two more villages - Vodolagi in Sumy and Novopol in Donetsk region.
And the governor of Russia's Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, accused the Ukrainian army of attacking civilian objects with drones last night, injuring 14 people, including children.