President Putin’s Allies Say Russia Wants Demilitarized Buffer Zone in Ukraine

Dmitry Medvedev with Vladimir Putin. (Wikimedia Commons/Dmitry Medvedev)

JAKARTA - Russia wants to create demilitarized buffer zones around areas of Ukraine it has annexed, President Vladimir Putin's ally said Friday, saying it may need to go further into Ukraine, if such zones cannot be established.

More than a year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Putin's main war goals have still not been achieved, even though Russia already controls nearly a fifth of the country's territory.

Both sides showed no signs of laying down their arms. Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed or seriously injured, according to Western military estimates.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of President Putin, said Russia needed a demilitarized corridor around territory it claims, while Ukraine said it would never accept Russian control.

"We need to achieve all the goals that have been set to protect our territory, namely the territory of the Russian Federation," Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said in an interview with Russian media posted on Telegram, reported by Reuters, March 25.

We need to "repel all foreigners who are there in a broad sense, create a buffer zone that will not allow the use of all types of weapons working at medium and short ranges, namely 70-100 kilometers, in order to demilitarize the territory," said Medvedev.

Russia will have to push further into Ukraine if such a zone is not established, he said, and take over the capital Kyiv or even the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has long insisted it would never accept Russian occupation of its lands.

Russia currently controls around 17-18 percent of Ukraine's territory, including most of the territory in the east and along the Azov and Black Sea coastlines and Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.

The artillery war between the two well-armed and well-supplied armies has cost Russia and Ukraine, which are supported by the United States and major European powers.

Russia insists it will achieve all of its war goals and has warned the West not to test its resolve.

By contrast, the West said what CIA Director William Burns called Putin's "arrogance" would be tempered by a battlefield defeat in Ukraine.

"Nothing can be ruled out here. If you have to go to Kyiv, then you have to go to Kyiv, if you have to go to Lviv, then you have to go to Lviv to destroy this infection," Medvedev concluded.