Putin threatens to seize Ukrainian city of Sumy in ongoing offensive

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened for the first time to seize Ukraine's north-eastern city of Sumy.

"We do not have the goal of capturing Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out," he said on Friday at the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum, in response to a journalist's question.

Russian troops have been capturing more and more towns in the Sumy region for months, and Putin said the armed forces were establishing a buffer zone which so far extends 10-12 kilometres into Ukraine from the north-east.

The front line is only about 18 kilometres from the city of Sumy's boundaries.

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson. Moscow recently threatened that other regions could follow if Kiev did not agree to Russia's maximum demands for an end to the war.

Speaking on Friday, Putin said he sees Russians and Ukrainians as one people. "In that sense, the whole of Ukraine is ours," he said to loud applause.

When asked by the moderator how much of Ukraine he wanted to conquer, he replied: "Wherever a Russian soldier's foot rests, that belongs to us."