Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed Russian statements regarding the capture of a village in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.

“As of this morning, the Russian flag in the village [of Ryzhivka] has been destroyed, and there are no occupiers present,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Monday.

The alleged conquest of the village was a Russian propaganda campaign, he added.

On Sunday evening, the head of Russia’s semi-autonomous republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, stated that a special unit had seized the border village of Ryzhivka in the Sumy region and inflicted significant losses on Ukrainian forces.

However, military observers quickly cast doubt on the claim, although for weeks there has been mounting speculation about Russian troops opening another front in Sumy.

Ukraine has been fending off an all-out Russian invasion for more than two years.