The Kremlin announced on Monday that it plans to create a buffer zone on the border with Ukraine to ensure its own territories are safe from attacks by Kyiv, confirming a statement by Vladimir Putin late on Sunday, Reuters reported.

“Against the background of (Ukrainian) drone attacks and shelling of our territory, public facilities, and residential buildings, it is necessary to take measures to ensure the security of these territories,” Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said on Monday.

“They can only be protected by creating some kind of buffer zone so that whatever means the enemy uses to hit us is out of range,” he added.

The explanation offered by the Kremlin at a press conference came after Vladimir Putin announced the intention in a speech on Sunday night following his victory in Russia’s presidential election.

“I do not exclude that, taking into account the tragic events that are happening today, we will be forced someday, when we consider it expedient, to create a certain sanitary zone in the territories that are currently under the Kyiv regime.” Putin said.

Putin declined to elaborate, but said such a zone should be large enough to prevent foreign-made weapons from striking Russian territory.

He made the remarks after being asked whether he thought it was necessary for Russia to seize Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, which borders Belgorod, a Russian province that has been under regular attack by Kiev forces since 2022.

Russian authorities said Monday that two people were killed and four others were wounded in Belgorod in attacks attributed to Ukrainian forces during the election.

Medvedev proposed that the buffer zone should be 70-100 kilometers

Russia first attempted to seize Kharkiv Oblast in February 2022, but Moscow’s forces were pushed back from most of the territory after Ukraine’s counteroffensive in September of that year.

In September 2022, Russia announced that it had annexed four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, although it did not fully control any of them.

Putin and the Kremlin have not said exactly which buffer zones they are talking about, but last year Security Council Vice President Dmitry Medvedev provided more detailed information about Russia’s intentions.

Medvedev said that we should “knock out all foreigners who are there in the broadest sense of the word, and create a buffer zone that does not allow the use of any types of weapons that operate at medium and short distances, that is, 70-100 kilometers.”

According to him, Russia will have to advance further into Ukraine if such zones are not created by capturing the capital Kyiv or even the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

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