MOSCOW (Dispatches) – 
Russia said on Sunday that its troops had taken the village of Basivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region, and were battering Ukrainian forces at a host of settlements in the area.
More than two years after the Russian war on Ukraine, Kyiv sent thousands of troops over the border into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year though a Russian operation over recent months has pushed most of Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly suggested that Russian forces carve out a buffer zone along the border.
Russia’s defense ministry said that it had taken the village of Basivka, just over the border from Sudzha, and had struck Ukrainian forces at 12 other points in the Sumy region.
It said that Russia had defeated Ukrainian units in the Russian settlements of Gornal, Guevo, and Oleshnya.
The pro-Ukrainian DeepState war map shows Ukraine in control of about 63 square kilometers (24 square miles) of Russian territory, down from as much as 1,400 square kilometers claimed by Kyiv last year.
Another 81 square kilometers of territory along the border - including Basivka - is classed by DeepState as of “unknown” control.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014, and most but not all of four other regions which Moscow now claims are part of Russia.
Russia controls all of Crimea, almost all of Luhansk, and more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, according to Russian estimates. It also controls a sliver of Kharkiv region.
Also on Sunday, a Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed one man and injured three other people overnight, causing damage and fires in several districts in the biggest such attack on Ukraine for weeks, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
The strike was the first large-scale attack using missiles and drones since the U.S. said late last month it had negotiated two ceasefire accords with Russia and Ukraine, including one that would on each other’s energy infrastructure.
Russian forces used ballistic and cruise missiles launched from both strategic bombers and naval fleets, as well as drones, during the overnight attack, Ukraine’s air force said.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy called for increased manufacturing of air defence systems and missiles, suggesting that such production should be established in Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, posted a video of firefighters trying to put out fires at badly damaged buildings.