Ukraine’s president visited the Sumy region in northern Ukraine on Tuesday, continuing his tour over recent days of areas of the country that have felt the brunt of Russia’s full-scale invasion and as the stage increasingly looks set for a Ukrainian counteroffensive. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with officials and local people in two cities in the region, which borders Russia. It was partially occupied by Russian forces after the war started more than a year ago. The Russians withdrew from the region by early April.
The Associated Press was granted exclusive access as Zelenskyy visited the Sumy region cities of Okhtyrka, which saw fierce battles last year but was never occupied, and Trostianets, which was held by the Russians for a month after the invasion but retaken by Ukrainian forces on March 26, 2022. Zelenskyy’s trip followed his visits over the past seven days to the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, parts of which were retaken last year from the Kremlin’s forces, to the intensely contested area near Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, and to Zaporizhzhia in the south. Also on Tuesday, at least three civilians were killed and 43 others were wounded by the latest Russian attacks involving drones, gliding bombs and heavy artillery, Ukraine’s presidential office said. In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian shelling hit 12 towns and villages, killing two people and wounding 34. The Russian shelling also targeted the southern city of Kherson, where five were wounded. In Bilopillia in the Sumy region, a Russian strike damaged a school building and an apartment building.
Addressing a crowd on a square in Okhtyrka, Zelenskyy promised that the battle-scarred city would be rebuilt. “We won’t let any wound remain on the body of our state,” he said.