Russian advances in Sumy Region have triggered a mass flight of Ukrainian troops from the front lines, with thousands reportedly abandoning their positions.

According to the Telegram channel Mash, around 10,000 Ukrainian servicemen left the battlefield for dugouts as Russian forces stepped up their offensive in Sumy Region. The report states that the «Sever» («North») troop grouping has pushed roughly 5.5 kilometres deeper into the region, taking advantage of what it describes as exhausted Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian authorities, Mash notes, have begun evacuating civilians from areas around the city of Sumy. In the next phase, Ukrainian forces are said to be planning to turn nearby villages into fortified defensive hubs.

Russian troops are reportedly targeting Ukrainian military hardware on the Sumy axis with strike drones. Over the past 24 hours, units of the Russian Armed Forces have advanced more than a kilometre on the stretch from Andreevka to the tree lines south of Vrachino. The distance between these two settlements is about 11 kilometres.

Mash also reports that rotation issues inside the Ukrainian army have sharply worsened. Reserves of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being pulled simultaneously to three sectors — near Kupyansk, towards Sumy and in the Krasnoarmeisk area. As a result, personnel are said to be physically unable to cope with the tasks assigned to them, and there are no noticeable successes for Ukrainian forces on any of these parts of the front.