UPD: During a meeting with government members, Vladimir Putin announced the decision to create a "security buffer zone along the border" of Russia and Ukraine, TASS reported. This concerns the Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions. These regions border the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions of Ukraine.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its report mentioned the Kremlin's plans to capture Sumy and parts of the Sumy region to create a buffer zone. However, experts note that implementing such plans will not be easy.
It is noted that on May 20, Putin visited the Kursk region, where he held a meeting with local officials. According to analysts, he likely tried to lay the groundwork for justifying renewed plans to capture the city of Sumy and illegally annex the Sumy region.
During the meeting, the head of the Glushkovsky district, Pavel Zolotarev, asked Putin to create a buffer zone in the Sumy region. Putin asked how many kilometers deep this buffer zone should be, and Zolotarev stated that Russia should capture "at least Sumy," implying that more could be taken.
Previously, Western and Ukrainian sources reported that the Russian delegation at the Ukrainian-Russian negotiations in Istanbul on May 16 threatened to capture the Sumy region to create a "security zone."
The city of Sumy is located about 25 kilometers from the international border, and a buffer zone along with the city would make it impossible for Ukrainian Defense Forces to use artillery and tactical drones to strike Russian territory.
Meanwhile, experts consider it unlikely that Russia will capture Sumy in the near and medium term, given Russia's demonstrated inability to quickly capture even much smaller settlements in Ukraine over the past three years. Ukrainian military observer Konstantin Mashovets reported on May 19 that parts of the Russian 18th Motorized Rifle Division and the 83rd Separate Airborne Brigade are conducting most of the offensives in the Sumy direction. Mashovets stated that up to four or five motorized rifle and rifle regiments of the Russian mobilization reserve are also operating in this direction. These limited forces are insufficient to capture such a large city as Sumy (pre-war population — 256,000 people), and Russian forces have not demonstrated the ability to capture large cities since the early months of the war.
During the day, from the morning of May 21 to the morning of May 22, Russian troops carried out more than 70 shellings of 29 settlements in the Sumy region, the local administration reported. Most of the shellings were recorded in the Sumy and Shostka districts. There were 30 MLRS strikes and 30 munitions dropped from drones, as well as several missile strikes.
Civilian infrastructure, private houses, and non-residential premises were damaged and destroyed,
During the day, local authorities, together with units of the State Emergency Service, National Police, and public organizations from border areas, evacuated 25 people.
During the day, the air raid alert in the region lasted 12 hours and 55 minutes.
Photo: Sumy Regional Military Administration