Russian President, Vladimir Putinhe would have used his recent visit to the Kursk border region To lay the foundations for a Possible military offensive towards the Ukrainian city of Sumiaccording to an analysis of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
This Thursday, which “is underway” the construction of a security zone in northern Ukraine. During his meeting on May 20 with local leaders, one of the attendees, Pavel ZolotarevChief of the District of Gushkovsky, urged Putin to create a “buffer zone” in the Sumi region.
Putin then asked how deep that area should be. “Sumi should be our [rusa]”Zolotarev replied. “We cannot live as in a peninsula. We should be more. At least sumy. I think so. And with you, as commander in chief, we will overcome, “he added.
Subsequently, Kursk’s interim governor, Alexander Khinshteinsupported that idea when pointing to Telegram that His grandfather was originally from Sumi, stating that “this land is no stranger”.
The ISW interprets these gestures as a Kremlin attempt by publicly legitimizing the idea of a future annexation from the Sumi regionjust 25 km from the Russian border. In line with this, they remember that in the Russian-Ukrainian conversations in Istanbul, on May 16, Moscow threatened to take sumy to create a “security zone.”
However, Experts consider Russia to achieve this short -term objective. “The current Russian forces in the Sumi direction are not enough to capture such a large city,” says the ISW, remembering that since 2022 Russia has not managed to take any Ukrainian city of more than 100,000 inhabitants.
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