Putin wants Ukraine ‘buffer zone’ to protect Russia from missile attacks

Vladimir Putin said he wants to create a “buffer zone” in Ukraine to protect Russia from long-range Western weapons.

The Russian president suggested the occupied belt of land would be deep enough into Ukrainian territory that it would be “quite difficult to penetrate using the foreign-made strike assets at the enemy’s disposal”.

Moscow has faced questions over its ability to defend against a recent spate of Ukrainian drone strikes against oil refineries and energy infrastructure.

Russian defences have also been thrown into doubt by pro-Kyiv Russian militias launching ground attacks into the Russian frontier regions of Belgorod and Kursk.

After winning a new six-year term in the Kremlin, Putin refused to rule out demands from pro-war ultra-nationalists for the creation of buffer zones on Ukrainian territory held by Kyiv.

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“I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, that we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ in the territories today under the Kyiv regime,” he said late on Sunday.

But he declined to further outline his plans for a “sanitary zone” in comments at his campaign headquarters on Sunday after taking 87 per cent of the vote in rubber-stamped presidential elections.

On Monday, the Kremlin said the creation of a buffer zone could be the only way to defend against an increasing series of attacks on Russian soil by Ukrainian forces.

“Against the backdrop of drone attacks and the shelling of our territory: public facilities, residential measures must be taken to secure these territories,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said in response to questions over Putin’s remarks.

“They can only be secured by creating some kind of buffer zone so that any means that the enemy uses to strike us are out of range.”

Pro-Moscow commentators have previously demanded large-scale advances of at least 15 kilometres into Ukrainian-held territory to move back Kyiv’s artillery systems from the Russian border.

Britain and France’s Storm Shadow and Scalp air-launched cruise missiles, which can hit targets about 150 miles away, are the longest-ranged weapon in Ukraine’s conventional arsenal.

While Russian forces are capitalising on ammunition shortages caused by dwindling Western support for Ukraine, it has been unable to take large swathes of territory since seizing the Donetsk region city of Avdiivka earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Western leaders condemned the presidential elections that granted Putin his fifth term in office, extending his almost quarter-century rule over Russia to 2030.

David Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, said: “Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy.”

An EU statement signed by its 27 member states said the ballot “took place in an ever-shrinking political space, which has resulted in an alarming increase of violations of civil and political rights.”

Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s foreign minister, went further to accuse Putin of staging his re-election, while his Lithuanian counterpart, Gabrielius Landsbergis, added: “It definitely can not be called an election, it’s a procedure that is supposed to resemble elections.”

“The elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him,” John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said.

But Moscow’s allies in China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela welcomed the news of Putin’s re-election, as well as more moderate India.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, said it meant “Russia will certainly be able to accomplish greater achievements”.

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, said he was looking forward “to working together to further strengthen” ties with Moscow, offering “warm congratulations” to Putin.