KYIV, March 23 — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday the Russian army was attempting to “intensify” attacks on the front, but that Ukraine had inflicted heavy losses.

“This week, we have observed attempts by the Russians to intensify their offensive efforts, taking advantage of more favourable weather conditions,” Zelensky said on social media after a meeting with Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

But “the only tangible outcome for the Russian army has been an increase in their losses — more than 8,000 killed and seriously wounded Russian soldiers in just these seven days,” Zelensky said — figures AFP could not independently verify.

Earlier yesterday, the Russian defence ministry said its forces had taken control of Potapivka, a small village near the Russian border in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.

The Russian army has been trying to establish a “buffer zone” in the Sumy region for months, making small, localised breakthroughs across the border.

Zelensky said Russian units attempting to advance in Sumy and neighbouring Kharkiv region were “being destroyed”.

Ukrainian officials said a 13-year-old boy and 18-year-old woman had been killed in Sumy by a Russian drone strike that hit a car in the border district of Shostka.

Sumy was partly occupied by Russian troops in the early days of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, then reclaimed by Ukrainian forces.

Russia is trying to advance there again, and has claimed the seizure of several villages at the edge of the region in recent months.

Ukraine says it is holding back Russia’s advances and that Moscow has struggled to establish a meaningful foothold in the region.

Russia currently occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it seized in 2014.

Russia’s advances in February were the slowest in nearly two years, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russian air strikes on Ukraine continue daily.

In the central-eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, two civilians were killed by Russian strikes in the Nikopol district, the head of the regional military administration said on Telegram. — AFP