Putin says Russia building non-negotiable ‘security zone’ inside Ukraine
Russia is establishing a “security zone” inside Ukraine along their shared border, which will be non-negotiable in any future talks with Kyiv, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
Putin, wearing military uniform and speaking during a visit to a command post, said the operation was in response to Ukraine’s 2024-25 incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.
“The Russian armed forces were tasked not only with expelling the enemy from our land but also with establishing a security zone in the adjacent territory. This task is being carried out successfully,” he said in televised comments.
“Our goal is to ensure the absolute security of Russia’s border regions for the future, and we do not plan to make this a subject for potential peace negotiations with Ukraine.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned security zone spanned 660 km (410 miles), of which 70 per cent was currently under Russia’s control. He did not say how deep it would reach inside Ukraine.
Putin has spoken before about the need for such a zone but has not previously spelt out its planned extent or said it would be off-limits for talks.
The plan requires Russia to seize territory in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, which are not among the areas it has claimed as its own since launching the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Putin, who rarely wears military uniform, struck a hawkish and confident tone in his comments to senior officers.
He was speaking at a critical point in diplomatic efforts to end the war, one week after a deal to sell Russian diesel to the United States won favour with President Donald Trump and prompted a fresh deterioration in relations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Putin said Russian forces had yet to capture just over 10 per cent of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a key objective, and 16.5 per cent of the Zaporizhzhia region.
He praised the effectiveness of Russian strikes against Ukrainian military, industrial and logistics targets, while acknowledging that Russia’s air defences still needed improvement.
Ukrainian drones have attacked several Russian data centres and a major oil refinery in the past nine days, while Russia has continued to pound Ukrainian cities, power plants and ports, among other targets.
Earlier, Putin’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, said Russia and the United States were discussing a range of new joint projects, including nuclear-powered data centres, following last week’s diesel agreement.
Credit: Reuters
