Sumy Evacuations & Russian Losses – Ukraine War Update
- As fighting intensifies, the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine is experiencing a combination of old and new Russian warfare tactics.
- Thousands of Russian soldiers are massed along the Sumy border, advancing slowly and incurring heavy casualties to seize farming villages.
- While missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities garner attention, the ground war continues to displace residents in the Sumy region.
ukraine’s Sumy Region Faces Dual Russian Warfare Tactics
Updated June 21, 2025
As fighting intensifies, the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine is experiencing a combination of old and new Russian warfare tactics. Along the border, Russian forces are employing both a grueling ground war and modern drone attacks.
Thousands of Russian soldiers are massed along the Sumy border, advancing slowly and incurring heavy casualties to seize farming villages. This month, Russia’s army reached 1 million casualties in Ukraine as the february 2022 invasion.
While missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities garner attention, the ground war continues to displace residents in the Sumy region.
Three Times Uprooted
nataliia piven’s life has been disrupted by both conventional and modern warfare. As March 2022, fighting has forced her family to move three times.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
Piven, now in a temporary shelter in Sumy, recounts how a Russian glide bomb wounded her and her husband on May 5. “We knew the enemy was getting a little closer every week, but we had nowhere else to go,” she said.
The family now resides in a hospital-turned-shelter, using plastic bags as dressers. “We’ve been here living like this for over a month,” Piven said. “But I’m not complaining; I know many people have had worse things happen.”
She recounted a neighbor’s loss: ”He was just sitting at the table when a drone killed him. That’s what we face now; it’s really scary.”
Rita Husakova, also displaced, tends to her eight children down the hall. A grenade dropped from a Russian drone hit the bus she was taking from her village, killing her uncle, aunt, and sister. She awaits relocation to a safer village.
What’s next
As Russian troops advance, the situation in the Sumy region remains dire, with displaced residents awaiting safer living conditions amid ongoing warfare.