Russian forces continue to advance into the Sumy region of Ukraine as they fight to push Ukrainian forces out of the remaining settlements they occupy in the Kursk region. The village of Veselivka is the latest settlement in the region to fall to Russian forces, as fighting now shifts from Kursk to Sumy.
Russia had initially occupied some parts of Sumy in February of 2022 when the war in Ukraine began, however they withdrew from the region in March of 2022 when they also withdrew from the territory around the capital of Kiev.
The Sumy region is from where Ukraine had invaded and occupied a portion of Kursk for 7 months until earlier this month when Russian forces launched an operation, aided by inserting special forces behind the frontlines using an out of use gas pipeline, leading to a rapid collapse of Ukraine's occupation of Russian territory.
On March 11th Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit the Kursk region after this operation and in a conversation with the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, stated the need to build a “security zone” around the border, hinting at the possibility of new Russian objectives to push Ukrainian forces back from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Also, over the weekend, Russian forces began fighting for the town of Kotyarivka in the Donetsk region, which is located right on the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region and are trying to advance westwards and may be on the brink of occupying territory in yet another Ukrainian region.