Russia's war in Ukraine

Putin wants a 'sanitary zone' within Ukraine

Speaking at his campaign headquarters following his inevitable re-election last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the ”need to create a certain sanitary zone on the present-day territories subject to the Kyiv regime,” an Orwellian way of phrasing a project of bombing civilians out of areas that Russian soldiers have been unable to capture by force.---There has, however, been a recent uptick in attacks. ”Usually, when they attack by artillery and destroy the villages, after that, they always tried to occupy,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking with CBS on 28 March.---Russia’s dream of a buffer zone is not a novel concept. Last June, Dmitri Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council who has become a mouthpiece for the most radical militarism of the Putin regime, claimed that such a zone would reach up to Lviv in the far west of Ukraine, near the Polish border.---In a statement to Reuters, Zelenskiy's advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Putin’s plan is ”a direct manifest statement that the war will only escalate.”

Kollen Post
Kollen Post

As Ukraine is challenged by the threat of Russian ”sanitary zones,” the rise in strikes on civilian villages in a corridor near the border with Russia, particularly in north-eastern Kharkiv and Sumy Oblasts, has been observed. Ukrainians on social media have shared videos of craters left by Russian artillery salvos in the middle of dirt roads.---These attacks come as Ukraine says it has stopped Russia's recent attempted advances at the line, despite shell hunger. Ukrainian leadership is continuing its pleas to the EU and the US for more armaments - particularly artillery and air-defence ammunition. Meanwhile, Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, in addition to the shelling of civilian targets with aerial bombs and artillery near the front lines.

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