A document headed “Decisions of the Eighth Convocation of the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Sumy District Council dated Aug. 8” lays claim to part of Russia’s Kursk region. This is included in areas currently occupied by units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Sumy proposes to offer inclusion of the city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district into the Sumy district of the Sumy region of Ukraine.
The document that was posted on Ukraine’s Real War Telegram channel among others looked genuine, although it seems it wasn’t. The “tongue-in-cheek” tone in which it was written probably gave it away long before Sumy’s District Council confirmed that the declaration was not genuine, saying that it had not met on Thursday, that no such decision was taken and, in any case, it would not be within its competence to take.
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The sentiment behind it is undoubtedly shared by many Ukrainians. It laid out what it claimed was the historical basis for the Ukrainian northeastern region’s pronouncement, and was written in a way that echoed the “justifications” President Vladimir Putin has made for seizing Crimea and parts of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The “Sumy declaration” says that the city of Sudzha was founded in the 17th century and became the hundredth city of the Sumy Regiment of the Ukrainian Free Cossack Regiments.
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It also references the contents of Decree number 17/2024 made by President of Ukraine in Jan. 22, 2024, entitled: “On the territories of the Russian Federation historically populated by Ukrainians.”
The decree calls on Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers to work with international experts to “elaborate and submit to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine an action plan to preserve the national identity of Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation, including the lands historically inhabited by them [Ukrainians].”
The Sumy district council document contends that those areas [of the Russian Federation] historically populated by Ukrainians and ethnic Ukrainian citizens living in the city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district have the right to:
- Receive education in the Ukrainian language
- Have free use of, public, social, cultural and religious rights
- Have access to Ukrainian-language mass media
- Have the right to peaceful assembly, guided by the provisions of international law on the elimination of racial, linguistic, religious and ethnic discrimination.
The Sumy resolution includes four action items:
- To accept the city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district as part of the Sumy district of the Sumy region, Ukraine to be known as “the Sudzha Territorial Community of the Sumy district of the Sumy region.”
- To hold a referendum and elections of state authorities and local self-government bodies in the Sudzha Territorial Community of the Sumy District of the Sumy Region.
- To entrust the conduct of the referendum at point 2 to the head of the Sumy District Territorial Election Commission of the Sumy Region.
- Control over the implementation of the decision to be entrusted to the Standing Commission on Lawfulness, Public Order, Combating Corruption, Regulatory Policy, Deputies’ Activities and Regulations of the Sumy District Council.
The council’s denial of the document’s authenticity was no surprise, such a development having taken place only two days after Ukraine’s advance into the Kursk region began seemed unlikely. However, the dissatisfaction with Russia’s political and military response among the civil population of the affected border areas is genuine and has been reflected in numerous posts on social media.
That is perhaps best exemplified by a resident of Sudzha who perhaps shared the impulse behind those who produced the “declaration” who said on a widely shared Telegram post: “If Russia can’t protect us, maybe the Ukrainians can…”
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