Putin planning buffer zone around border with Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was considering a plan to create a buffer zone between Ukrainian land and Russian border regions and Russian-held territory in Ukraine as the war settles into a long conflict.

Putin spoke at a press conference late Sunday after he won election for a fifth term in a landslide election that Ukraine and Western nations have slammed as a rigged contest.

At the press event, the Russian president lamented that border regions are under attack from Ukraine. While he said Russians in the regions are “showing courage,” he discussed the possibility of a buffer zone to cement protections.

“I do not rule out that Russia will be forced to create a sanitary zone in the territories controlled by the Kyiv regime,” Putin said, according to comments shared by state-run media channels.

It’s not clear exactly how the buffer zones would work, but Russian regions such as Belgorod have been under constant attack by Ukrainian forces since the war began in February 2022.

Russia also occupies four territories in eastern Ukraine: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, which Putin annexed in 2022. Those territories, along with the Crimean Peninsula that Putin annexed in 2014, are also under frequent attack from Ukrainian troops targeting Russian forces.

The Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine participated in Russia’s elections this year for the first time, with some voters reportedly being forced to vote at gunpoint. Putin said Sunday that the turnout was strong in those regions and suggested voters want to be a part of Russia.

Putin also acknowledged Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in an arctic prison last month. Navalny, the most vocal and well-known opposition leader in Russia, was imprisoned for more than three years before his death, which the West has pinned on Putin.

Putin, however, has rarely if ever mentioned Navalny by name. On Sunday, he confirmed there were negotiations to release Navalny in a prisoner swap and claimed he had agreed to such a deal before his death.

But the Kremlin later walked back those claims, saying Putin was only referring to an idea that was presented, according to the Moscow Times.

Navalny’s last call was for Russians to protest their country’s presidential elections by showing up at the polls at noon to form protest lines. Thousands of Russians did so over the weekend, and Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, also helped stage a protest in Berlin.

Putin’s election brings him closer to becoming the longest-running president in more than 200 years; he has already tweaked the constitution to allow him to effectively rule for life.

His election victory comes after Russian forces are making progress on the battlefield after struggling in the first two years of the war.

Russian troops have taken the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine and continue to advance slowly, while Ukraine is running low on resources as the U.S. stalls on passing more aid to Kyiv.

Putin on Sunday again said he was open for discussions to end the war in Ukraine but also acknowledged it was “possible” that NATO could fight with Russia in the future, a possibility that he compared to World War III.

He also waded into U.S. elections in his speech, accusing Washington of corruption and overseeing a “disaster” instead of a democracy.

Putin said he has no preference for who wins the presidential race this year amid speculation that former President Trump would be warmer to Kremlin policy. Putin did not mention Trump’s name but said “attacks on one of the U.S. presidential candidates are ridiculous and have become a disgrace for America.”