Putin Orders Expansion of Russian ‘Buffer Zone’ in Northeastern Ukraine

Russian military commander Valery Gerasimov said on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to expand what Moscow calls its “buffer zone” in northeastern Ukraine in the new year, as per Reuters.

According to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces also claimed that Russia’s “North” troop grouping has captured roughly 950 square kilometers (367 square miles) of territory in Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed to be seeking control of northeastern Ukraine in order to protect Russians living in border areas such as Kursk and Belgorod from cross-border attacks. Kyiv contends that this is a pretext for Russia’s invasion. 

The leaders of countries on the EU and NATO’s eastern flank recently warned that Russia’s goal is to “create a buffer zone stretching from the Arctic region through the Baltic and Black Seas to the Mediterranean.”

Gerasimov’s comments come as weeks of peace negotiations pushed by US President Donald Trump hang in the balance. The US had been optimistic about the plan’s chances of coming to fruition, while Russia either rejected or remained noncommittal about the specific contents of the plan.

Earlier this week, however, the Kremlin claimed that Kyiv had launched 91 long-range drones on Putin’s Valdai residence in Novgorod. Trump appeared to take this seriously despite Kyiv’s denial and the lack of evidence proffered by Moscow, saying that he was “very angry” about the alleged attack.

In the aftermath, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of attempting to “collapse” the peace process. If Putin’s general is to be believed, however, Russia is gearing up for another year of its war in Ukraine.