The governor of Ukraine’s Sumy region, which borders Russia, said that Russian forces had seized control of four villages in a fresh push to establish a "buffer zone" within Ukrainian territory.
Russian military sources and pro-Russian bloggers had reported the capture of villages in the region in recent days. Sumy has been subject to repeated air strikes since the start of Russia’s attacks.
Writing on social media on Monday, Sumy Region Governor Oleh Hryhorov named the captured villages as Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka, all located near the border. He noted that residents of these villages had already been evacuated.
“The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called 'buffer zone',” Hryhorov wrote.
He said Ukrainian forces were "keeping the situation under control, inflicting precise fire damage on the enemy."
Fighting is reportedly ongoing nearby villages, including Volodymyrivka and Bilovodiv — both of which Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed earlier on Monday were now under its control.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported that one civilian was killed on Monday when Russian forces shelled an area west of the captured villages.
Sumy region lies across from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops carried out a cross-border raid in August 2023. While Moscow says it has expelled Ukrainian troops from the area, Kiev maintains that its forces are still active there.
Over the weekend, DeepState, a well-known Ukrainian military blog, reported that Russian forces had for the first time managed to establish positions along a line of border villages in the Sumy region.
A Russian missile strike on the regional capital, also named Sumy, killed 35 people on Palm Sunday last month.
DeepState also reported on Monday that Russian forces had launched new attacks further east near Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region — an area where Moscow had opened another front in May 2024.
West lifts restrictions on weapon supplies
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday said Western powers have lifted range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine, allowing Kiev to strike military targets inside Russia.
“There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine. Neither from the British, nor from the French, nor from us, nor from the Americans,” Merz said at the WDR European Forum in Berlin.
“This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself, for example by attacking military positions in Russia. It couldn't do that until a while ago. With very few exceptions, it didn't do that until a while ago either. But now it can do this,” he said.
Ukraine accuses China of supplying Russia
In other developments, Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief on Monday claimed that China is providing supplies to military factories in Russia.
“True, information has emerged, suggesting that China supplies tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder, and components specifically to defense manufacturing industries,” Oleh Ivashchenko, the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told the state-run Ukrinform news agency.
Ivashchenko claimed that they have confirmed data on 20 Russian factories in this regard, adding that they have recorded at least five cases of aircraft industry cooperation between Russia and China in 2024-2025.
“As of early 2025, 80 percent of critical electronic components found in Russian drones originated in China,” he said.
“At the same time, there are facts of product substitutions, deceptive product names, there are shell companies through which everything necessary for the production of microelectronics is supplied,” he added.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China of giving direct military support to Russia, as well as announced sanctions that also targeted China-based entities, claiming they are involved in the production of Russian missiles.
