Russian President Vladimir Putin likely orchestrated a meeting with Kursk region officials on May 20 to set the stage for justifying renewed Russian plans to seize the city of Sumy and illegally annex Sumy region.
Putin met with municipal leaders in Kursk region on May 20, during which the head of Glushkovsky Raion, Pavel Zolotarev, asked Putin to create a buffer zone in Sumy region. Putin inquired how many kilometers deep this buffer zone should be, and Zolotarev claimed that Russia should seize "at least Sumy (City)," implying that Russia should be “bigger.”
Acting Kursk region Governor Alexander Khinshtein later commented on the exchange via his Telegram channel, stating that his grandfather was from Sumy region, so “this land is not foreign to [him].”
Sumy City lies roughly 25 kilometers from the international border, and a buffer zone deep enough to include the city would prevent Ukrainian forces from launching tube artillery and tactical drone strikes into Russian territory. Western and Ukrainian sources reported that the Russian delegation at the May 16 Ukrainian-Russian talks in Istanbul threatened to seize Sumy region to create a “security zone.”
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) continues to assess that Russia’s territorial ambitions extend beyond the regions it has already illegally occupied or annexed and that Putin may seek to leverage further advances in Sumy region to pressure Ukraine into ceding territory during future peace negotiations.
The Kremlin likely staged the May 20 interaction to present Putin as a responsive and decisive wartime leader—seemingly reacting to domestic calls for further advancement into Sumy region and reinforcing Russia’s claims to more Ukrainian territory. Putin’s visit to Kursk region on May 20 marked his first trip there since the Kremlin claimed military control over the region on April 26.
ISW has observed reports indicating that Ukrainian forces still maintain limited positions within Kursk region, despite official Russian claims that Ukrainian troops have been completely pushed out.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May 21 that Ukrainian forces remain actively engaged in combat operations in the region.
During his visit, Putin also met with Acting Kursk region Governor Khinshtein and pledged to continue federal funding for local residents and to expand demining operations.
This meeting aligns with the Kremlin’s broader efforts to portray Putin as a competent and compassionate wartime leader while downplaying setbacks in the Ukrainian theater.
Despite these efforts, Russian forces are highly unlikely to seize Sumy City in the near to medium term, given their consistent failure to rapidly capture even smaller Ukrainian settlements over the past three years. Ukrainian military analyst Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on May 19 that the Russian 18th Motorized Rifle Division (11th Army Corps, Leningrad Military District) and the 72nd Motorized Rifle Division (44th Army Corps, LMD) are conducting most of the offensive actions toward Sumy, with possible support from the 83rd Separate Airborne (VDV) Brigade.
He noted that up to four or five motorized rifle and rifle regiments from Russia’s mobilization reserves are also operating in the direction of Sumy.
These limited forces are insufficient to capture a city the size of Sumy (pre-war population: 256,000), and Russian troops have not demonstrated the capability to take large urban centers since the early months of the invasion. Russia has not captured a Ukrainian city with a pre-war population exceeding 100,000 since Lysychansk in Luhansk region in July 2022. That victory came only after a prolonged and attritional campaign that exhausted Russian offensive capacity in eastern Ukraine by summer 2022—far from a swift or decisive maneuver.
Since then, Russian forces have struggled to capture significantly smaller settlements even with greater force concentrations, particularly in eastern and northern Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have consistently expressed doubt that Russian forces could mount a successful offensive to seize Sumy City.
