Ukraine denies Russian presence in Sumy Oblast border village, media reports
Claims that Russian troops have entered the village of Yunakivka in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy Oblast are false, Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne reported on May 24, citing the Ukrainian Kursk military command.
Earlier, Russia's state-run news agency TASS claimed that Russian forces had entered Yunakivka, a village near the Russian border in Sumy Oblast. Ukrainian officials refuted the claim in comments for Suspilne, saying that no Russian presence had been established in the settlement.
According to DeepState, an open-source monitoring group, several villages in the region, including Novenke, Zhuravka, Veselivka, and Basivka, remain in the so-called "gray zone," areas with ongoing or unclear military control.
The gray zone reportedly expanded toward Vodolahy and Bilovody between May 12 and 13, villages in the Khotin community west of the city of Sumy.
Sumy Oblast, which borders Russia to the north, has been a repeated target of Russian incursions and shelling since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The region has recently seen renewed hostilities as Russian forces ramp up activity along the northeastern border.
Nearly 56,000 residents have been evacuated from Sumy Oblast as of May 19, with over 86,000 people currently under mandatory evacuation orders. Approximately 65% of the targeted population has already left the region, including 2,400 residents evacuated in the past week.
The latest wave of evacuations follows a deadly Russian strike on a civilian bus in Bilopillia, Sumy Oblast, on May 17 that killed nine people and injured seven others.
Francis Farrell
