Novenke () is a village in

Yunakivka rural hromada Yunakivka is a village in Sumy Raion, Sumy Oblast. It is the capital of Yunakivka rural hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Its population is 12 (). History Yunakivka was founded in 1685 by sotnik S. Yunok, comprising lands he owned w ...

Sumy Raion Sumy Raion () is a raion (district) in Sumy Oblast in central Ukraine. The administrative center of the raion is the city of Sumy, which was formerly administratively incorporated as a city of oblast significance until 2020. Population: On 18 ...

Sumy Oblast Sumy Oblast (), also known as Sumshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in northeast Ukraine. The oblast was created in its modern-day form, from the merging of raions from Kharkiv Oblast, Chernihiv Oblast, and Poltava Oblast in 1939 by the Presid ...

Northern Ukraine This is a list of historical regions in present-day Ukraine. Main historical regions Traditional regions The traditional names of the regions of Ukraine are important geographic, historical, and ethnographic identifiers. * Over-Dnieper ...

. According to the 2001 census, the population was 15 people, but by 2023, only 3 residents remained in the village. In 2025,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

captured the village through a cross-border offensive.

Geography

The village is located on the left side of the . Upstream, about 2 km south, is

Basivka Basivka (; ) may refer to: * Basivka, Lviv Oblast * Basivka, Sumy Oblast {{place name disambiguation ...

, and downstream, around 1.5 km north, is Sverdlikovo (in Kursk Oblast). The village is right on the border with Russia.

History

On June 12, 2020, following the order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 723-r "About Determining the Administrative Center and Approving the Territories of the Territorial Communities of Sumy Oblast," this village became part of the Yunakivka rural hromada. On July 19, 2020, as a result of the administrative-territorial reform and the liquidation of the Sumy District (1923–2020), this village was included in the newly formed Sumy Raon.

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

As of February 28, 2025, according to data from DeepState and the

Institute for the Study of War The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is an American nonprofit research group and advocacy think tank founded in 2007 by military historian Kimberly Kagan and headquartered in Washington, D.C. ISW provides research and analysis of modern arm ...

, this area is in what's called the "gray zone". According to Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, Russian forces tried to attack the village of Novenke along the border line, but without vehicle columns, just with infantry groups. On the other hand, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) destroyed the enemy. According to info from "Kordon Media," citing Ukrainian military sources directly in the Kursk operation zone, the area around Novenke is important for Russia because it would allow them to cut off and complicate the logistics of Ukrainian defense forces in the Kursk region, as there’s a major logistics artery nearby. That’s why the enemy is trying to attack this area. On March 7, 2025, Russian sources claimed that their armed forces had taken over the village, and the next day, based on geolocation footage released, it’s likely that Russian forces captured Novenke.

References

Villages in Sumy Raion Populated places in Sumy Oblast {{Sumy-geo-stub