(Reuters) -Ukraine has retaken two villages in its eastern region of Sumy, Kyiv’s military said, adding to recent small territorial gains along the border with Russia ahead of peace talks at a summit of the U.S. and Russian leaders set for Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that Kyiv and Moscow will both have to cede land to end the war in Ukraine and this week’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin will show whether the Kremlin leader is willing to make a deal.
Ukraine’s forces have liberated the settlements of Stepne and Novokostiantynivka along the frontline in Sumy, the General Staff said in a Tuesday evening report.
“It’s tough. But we are holding back the enemy,” Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook, following a meeting on Tuesday with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s top brass.
“In the Sumy direction, we are conducting active operations and have some success advancing forward, liberating Ukrainian land.”
Monday’s gains follow Sunday’s news that Kyiv’s military had retaken the village of Bezsalivka.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports of gains in the Sumy region.
The small gains come as Russian forces have been pushing westward for months along sections of the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontline, capturing new villages nearly on a daily basis, mainly in the Donetsk region.
Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mounted a new offensive this year in Sumy, following Putin’s order to carve out a “buffer zone” there and threatening the regional capital.
Ukraine’s authoritative Deep State online map project shows that Russian forces control about 200 sq km (77 sq miles) of Sumy, and a total of about 114,000 square kilometres (44,000 sq miles) in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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