President Vladimir Putin appeared to joke about seizing Ukraine’s Sumy region during a recent visit to Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, even as the Kremlin continues to claim it seeks a negotiated end to the war.
The remark came during a conversation captured on video and released by the state-run TASS news agency. In the footage, a local official from the Glushkovsky district near the Ukrainian border, Pavel Zolotarev, told Putin, “Sumy should be ours.”
Zolotarev added, “We can’t live like we’re on some kind of peninsula. There should be more of us—at least in Sumy. With you as commander-in-chief, we’ll win.”
The comment came after Putin asked how far Russian troops should push Ukrainian forces from the border.
Smiling, Putin pointed to nearby officials and responded with a joke. He said his appointment of Alexander Khinshtein as acting governor of the Kursk region was part of that goal. “That’s why Alexander Yevseyevich was chosen. He also wants more of everything,” Putin said.
The officials around him laughed at the remark.
Putin’s comments came just days after reports emerged that Russian negotiators had threatened to take control of Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions during peace talks held in Turkey.
Although Moscow has not officially claimed either region, both have faced repeated Russian attacks in recent months.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced it was creating a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s Sumy region. This move echoed the same reasoning given for Russia’s ongoing offensive in Kharkiv.
The statement followed Putin’s earlier call, during a previous trip to Kursk, for Russian forces to push Ukrainian troops farther from the border.
During the latest visit, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin that Kursk had been “fully liberated” with assistance from North Korean troops. Ukrainian forces had occupied parts of the region during a surprise incursion in August.
