On the sidelines of the talks for a solution… Moscow maneuvers militarily in Ukraine
Moscow is intensifying its movements in Ukraine, seizing control of a town that has gained importance in the context of defending Russian territory, while also carrying out nighttime missile strikes.
On Monday, Moscow announced that it had taken control of a town in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, near the Russian border.
In its daily report, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that “units of the Northern Forces Group have taken control of the town of Hrabovske in the Sumy region.”
In December, the Ukrainian army reported that fighting had broken out in this area after Russian soldiers crossed the border to launch an attack there.
Russian forces already control more than 200 square kilometers of territory in the Sumy region.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, accused Russian forces of forcibly transferring around fifty civilians from Hrabovske into Russia.
Agence France-Presse was not able to independently verify these allegations.
The Sumy region is not among the territories Moscow seeks to annex, but President Vladimir Putin had ordered his forces to establish a “buffer zone” there to prevent Ukrainian troops from advancing into Russia, as happened in the summer of 2024.
Nighttime strikes
Meanwhile, Russian attacks carried out overnight from Sunday to Monday killed at least two people in Kyiv and its outskirts, according to local authorities, on the eve of a scheduled meeting of Ukraine’s allies aimed at reviving diplomatic efforts to end the war.
Air-raid sirens sounded across Ukraine during the night, and the army warned of possible missile and drone attacks.
In the capital, Kyiv, a private medical facility was hit, causing a fire, killing one person and injuring three others, according to emergency services, which released footage showing a damaged building façade and patients being evacuated on stretchers.
In the surrounding region, the shelling targeted several homes and “critical infrastructure,” resulting in the death of a man in the town of Fastiv, according to the head of the regional military administration, Mykola Kalachnyk.
The attacks also caused power outages, requiring emergency systems to maintain water and heating supplies, Kalachnyk added.
These strikes come ahead of a meeting in Paris of countries allied with Kyiv, in an attempt to make progress toward resolving what has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
In preparation for the meeting, security advisers from fifteen countries gathered last Saturday in the Ukrainian capital.
Steve Witkoff, envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump, participated remotely in the discussions, which focused on the details of the latest version of the plan to end the war with Russia.
Another preparatory meeting of military leaders is scheduled for Monday.
These meetings aim to “make an additional contribution to Ukraine’s defensive capacity and accelerate the end of the war,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
