Russian President Vladimir Putin floated an idea this week that the Kremlin might need to create a “buffer” zone to protect Russia’s borders from a recent spate of Ukrainian counterattacks and cross-border rampages by armed groups of anti-Kremlin fighters.
“We will be forced at some point, when we consider it necessary, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ on the territories controlled by the (Ukrainian government),” Putin said in remarks delivered on Sunday, according to an AP translation. The zone “would be quite difficult to penetrate using the foreign-made strike assets at the enemy’s disposal,” Putin added.
The proposal has raised questions about just how capable the Kremlin is of preventing the war from spilling over into Russian territory—and what exactly his buffer zone would mean for the war in Ukraine.
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Putin’s buffer zone idea comes after months of failures in achieving his original war aims. While Russia has gained ground in recent days in Ukraine—as U.S. lawmakers have failed to approve more military aid for Kyiv—the overall fight has stalled out in a protracted phase.
If Russia were to try and establish a buffer zone inside Ukraine and presumably focus the operation on Kharkiv, it might just be a thinly veiled attempt at seizing more Ukrainian territory, according to Lionel Beehner, adjunct associate professor of International and Public Affairs at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
Fire extinguishing efforts continue as fire breaks out after a Russian shelling on an industrial building in Kharkiv, Ukraine on March 20, 2024.
Photo by Yevhen Titov/Anadolu via Getty Images“There’s definitely a lopsided distribution of power. You have one state essentially at war with another saying unilaterally that we’re going to impose, or at least take, a buffer zone,” Beehner, who has published research on buffer zones in international politics, told The Daily Beast.
This is “probably on some level a signal that Putin’s willing to go all in,” Beehner said. He added that while Putin may have a vested interest in protecting Russian border regions against the Ukrainian attacks, Putin may also be interested in using the attacks inside Russia as an opportunity to try adding legitimacy to his long standing narrative that Moscow is not the belligerent in the war, but rather on the defense.
The proposal comes as pro-Kyiv Russian militias have been waging an armed offensive in the Russian border region of Belgorod in recent weeks. The campaign, which is allegedly aimed at pressuring Moscow to end the war against Ukraine, has killed hundreds of Russians and successfully distracted Russian forces, according to Ukrainian intelligence. Ukrainian forces have simultaneously been attacking oil refineries and other energy infrastructure in Russia in an effort to starve Russia of funding sources for its war.
As of Tuesday, the attacks have damaged over 130 residential houses and 60 passenger cars, according to Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Russia has been so rattled by the attacks that it is evacuating thousands of children from Belgorod. The Russian military has also deployed air defenses in an attempt to intercept the attacks. The governor of Kursk, which has also come under attack, deployed a new kind of alert system for warning residents of drone attacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the buffer zone idea would be aimed at further shoring up security in the regions as the attacks rain down.
“Against the backdrop of (Ukrainian) drone attacks and the shelling of our territory, public facilities, residential buildings, measures must be taken to secure these territories,” Peskov said. “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.”
Burned-out cars are seen in a residential area of the city of Belgorod following fresh aerial attacks on March 22, 2024.
STRINGER/AFP via Getty ImagesWhile buffer zones are sometimes mutually agreed upon by both parties, that almost certainly wouldn’t be the case in Ukraine, said James Nixey, the director of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House.
“Vladimir Putin’s supposed proposal for a buffer zone on Ukrainian territory, between Russia and Ukraine, is a non-starter and can be dismissed easily and in good conscience,” Nixey told The Daily Beast. “The Ukrainians would never accept it.”
Even if there were some kind of mutually agreed-upon buffer zone—which seems unlikely at this point—Putin almost certainly would not honor it, according to Nixey.
“Putin’s track record in keeping promises, agreements and treaties is unblemished—he doesn’t keep any of them. Russia wins by asking for the whole of someone’s cake and then settling (for the time being) for half… “It is a near-certainty that Russia would rearm and regroup and try again,” Nixey said. “For Putin, the whole of Ukraine is the buffer zone and more beyond,” Nixey said.
Kyiv accused Moscow’s so-called buffer zone proposal a sign that Putin is prepared to escalate the war.
The recent mass shooting in a Moscow concert hall—in which more than a 100 citizens have been killed, according to Russian authorities—have added to those concerns.
Russian officials were quick to point a finger at Kyiv in the aftermath of the massacre on Friday, claiming that the suspects were planning to cross into Ukrainian territory before being arrested. The terror group ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the attack, and Ukraine denied any involvement.
“This is... a direct manifest statement that the war will only escalate,” presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters, referring to the buffer zone reports. “All this is direct evidence that the Russian Federation is not ready to live in modern social and political relations, taking into account the absolute sovereign rights of other countries.”
