Russia will restrict access to border areas with Ukraine from July 23 due to Ukrainian bombings, confirming the failure of Vladimir Putin, who launched an offensive in May to prevent these attacks.
On May 10, the Russian head of state ordered a surprise attack by his forces in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv to create a buffer zone capable of limiting Ukrainian fire against the Russian region of Belgorod.
Although Russian forces conquered some Ukrainian locations, they were never able to create this "security zone" or break through the opponent's defenses.
According to Kyiv, Moscow recorded very heavy losses in this attack that is still ongoing, reported the agency France-Presse (AFP).
"We will restrict access to 14 locations where the operational situation is extremely difficult," the Russian governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced today on the social network Telegram.
The decision is unprecedented, but necessary according to the official, who seems to recognize that the establishment of a buffer zone has failed: "We have already lost many civilians, we have many injured and our task is, in fact, to take maximum security measures.
The announcement comes just weeks after the West authorized, under certain conditions, its Ukrainian ally to attack military targets on Russian territory with modern Western weapons.
The Ukrainians had already been carrying out attacks against Russia for months with their own equipment, which was older, less precise and had a more restricted range.
For Kyiv, it is about taking the fight to Russian territory and attacking sites used to bomb Ukraine.
The Kremlin did not immediately comment on the decision announced by the Russian governor and also on the diplomatic front, Russia reacted today with caution to the comments of the Ukrainian President, who on Monday opened the door to talks with Moscow, for the first time since the spring of 2022, by evoking a Russian presence at a future peace summit.
Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that he was in favor of a Russian presence at a future summit, Act II, after the conference organized in Switzerland in mid-June on peace in Ukraine, which brought together dozens of leaders, but of which the Russia had been excluded.
"The first peace summit was not a peace summit at all, so obviously we first have to understand what he [Zelensky] means by that," stressed Russian presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov in an interview with Zvezda channel.
Zelensky, in turn, said he wanted to present in November - the month of the presidential elections in the United States - a plan for "a just peace", after almost two and a half years of large-scale conflict that caused hundreds of thousands of victims civilians and military.
Russia still occupies almost 20% of Ukrainian territory and the prospects for a ceasefire remain minimal, as the positions between Kyiv and Moscow are at this stage opposite.
Putin established as a prerequisite for the discussions Ukraine's abandonment of five regions whose annexation Moscow claims and its alliance with the West. Kyiv, in turn, demands the withdrawal of Russian forces.
