(Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had advanced in border districts of northern Sumy region, an area where Russian troops have tried for months to establish a foothold.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, also quoted Ukraine’s top commander as saying Moscow’s forces had suffered significant losses in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions along the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontline.
Zelenskiy was speaking after a week of Russian statements underscoring what Moscow described as gains in central Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russian troops are engaged in a slow push across eastern Ukraine, with nearly daily announcements of captured villages.
Moscow has annexed four regions it has partially occupied — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — but not Dnipropetrovsk where it has so far said it has taken a string of villages along the edge of its administrative border.
“There are good results in border areas of Sumy region,” Zelenskiy said, citing top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi. “Our units are continuing to advance in the direction of Ukraine’s state border.”
Since evicting Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region earlier this year, Russian troops have tried to set up what the Kremlin calls a buffer zone in Sumy region. Russia regularly shells larger towns, including the city of Sumy.
Zelenskiy said Russian forces had suffered notable losses near Kupiansk, an area in northeast Kharkiv region under sustained Russian pressure for months.
“We continue to operate in the Dobropillia direction,” he said, referring to a town near Pokrovsk, one of the focal points of Russia’s long-running drive through Donetsk region. “It is important that Russian assaults are being repelled by our boys.”
The Russia-appointed head of parts of Donetsk region under Moscow’s control, Denis Pushilin, said in a video posted online that Russian forces were pressing on with a pincer movement near villages around Pokrovsk.
Further to the west, the governor of Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram that two people had died in shelling and drone attacks in different parts of the region.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Bogdan Kochubey; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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