Ukrainian authorities have announced that Russian forces have attacked the border Ukrainian region of Sumy from neighboring Russia's Kursk region, part of which was captured by the Ukrainian army last summer.
"The Russians are trying to attack the border with infantry groups, without vehicles. So far, there have been no breakthroughs, fighting continues," the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation said.
Fighting is taking place near the Ukrainian village of Novenka, ten kilometers west of Sumy, a large Russian city held by the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region.
The Ukrainian army entered Kursk in August 2024 and still holds a few hundred square kilometers, which Kiev hopes to use for a possible exchange in the event of negotiations with Moscow.
Russia, which has occupied about 20 percent of Ukraine's territory, has ruled out the possibility of any exchange of territory.
The Russian army has been waging a counteroffensive for months to drive out Ukrainian forces, which are smaller than the Russians and have largely retreated, from the Kursk region.
In mid-February, Ukrainian authorities announced that they controlled 500 square kilometers in that region of Russia, and in August, at the beginning of the offensive on Russian territory, they occupied 1.400 square kilometers.
Kiev and its allies claim that Russia has sent thousands of North Korean soldiers to the region to assist the Russian military, but Moscow has not confirmed this.
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