Russia May Push Buffer Zone Into NATO Nation: Putin Ally

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia and ally of President Vladimir Putin, spoke of potentially creating a "sanitary zone" either on the border with or inside Poland.

On Friday, Ukraine hit fuel depots, oil facilities and a power station in southwestern Russia and Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow has occupied since 2014. The Russian Defense Ministry said via Telegram on Friday that Moscow intercepted more than 100 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on Thursday night. The day before, Ukraine fired missiles that hit an airfield in Crimea. The drone strikes came after Russian forces advanced into northeastern Ukraine last week.

Medvedev, a former Russian president and prime minister, wrote in a Telegram post translated into English on Friday: "This is not the first time that President Putin has said that for a quiet life, our country will have to create a sanitary zone, within which the neo-Nazi regime will not be able to hit targets on the territory of Russia [including, of course, all the lands that have returned to our state]."

When Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he claimed it was to "denazify" the country. However, Ukraine, the U.S. and multiple experts on the region have denied Russia's claim that the war-torn country—whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish—is corrupted by Nazis.

"If this continues, the guaranteed sanitary zone will be somewhere on the border with Poland. Or already in Poland itself," Medvedev said.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian government via online form and the Polish Foreign Affairs Ministry via email for comment.

On Friday, Putin said that Moscow's goal in northeastern Ukraine is to create a buffer zone to protect its citizens from attacks.

"As for what is happening in the Kharkiv direction, this is [Ukraine's] fault because they shelled and continue, unfortunately, to shell residential neighborhoods in the border areas, including Belgorod," Putin told reporters during a state visit to China.

"Civilians are dying there. It's obvious. They are shooting directly at the city center, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a buffer zone. That is what we are doing."

When asked if Russia plans to take control of Kharkiv, which is Ukraine's second-largest city, Putin said "there are no such plans as of today."

If Russia were to invade Poland, which is a member of NATO, it would risk war with all 32 member states as part of Article 5 of the treaty. However, Putin said in December 2023 that Moscow has "no interest" in fighting NATO.

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