Russia masses 50,000 troops near Sumy front

Russia has massed more than 50,000 troops, including some of its best forces, near Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, but Kyiv has taken steps to prevent them from conducting a large-scale offensive, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The build-up comes as Russia appears to be gearing up for a summer offensive in Ukraine while Kyiv waits for Moscow to present a memorandum laying out its conditions to proceed with ceasefire talks.

Sumy lies across the border from Russia's Kursk region where Ukraine previously seized and held a pocket of land for months, before being almost fully pushed out last month, although it says it still holds some small areas there.

"Their largest, strongest forces are currently on the Kursk front," Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday. "To push our troops out of the Kursk region and to prepare offensive actions against the Sumy region."

Putin has said he wants a "buffer zone" along Russia's border with Ukraine. Zelensky said he believed Russia wants to carve out an area of Ukrainian territory about 10 km (6 miles) deep.

Kremlin rebuffs a call by Zelensky for a three-way summit with Trump and Putin

Meanwhile, the Kremlin yesterday rebuffed a call by Zelensky for a three-way summit with Trump and Putin.

The United States and Russia also quarrelled in public yesterday over the intensifying Ukraine war after US President Donald Trump warned that President Vladimir Putin was "playing with fire"

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that Putin was playing with fire and cautioned that "REALLY BAD" things would have happened already to Russia if it was not for Trump himself.

Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, a former president, dismissed Trump's criticism.

"Regarding Trump's words about Putin 'playing with fire' and 'really bad things' happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!" Medvedev wrote in English on the social media platform X.