Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said 'all of Ukraine' belonged to Russia in a speech on June 20 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, amid increasingly bullish official statements about Moscow's final territorial ambitions in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia allegedly does not plan to capture Sumy. However, he cynically added right away that he "does not rule out" such a possibility, according to Putin’s statement at the plenary session of SPIEF-2025 (St.