“Army only creates buffer zone”
Putin doesn’t want to conquer Kharkiv – at the moment
May 17, 2024, 2:21 p.m
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Many thousands of Russian soldiers and quick successes in the Kharkiv region – but Russia apparently does not want to conquer the city of over a million people that gives it its name. At least that’s what President Putin says. The goal is different. The West tends to believe that the Kremlin lacks the resources.
According to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, the city of Kharkiv, which has been under fire from Russian troops for weeks, will not be taken as of now. As of now, there are no plans to take Kharkiv, Putin told representatives of Russian state media at the end of his visit to China in the city of Harbin. A reporter asked him the question after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the massively attacked Kharkiv region on Thursday. Zelenskyj spoke of a stabilization of the situation there.
Putin stated that Russia is currently setting up a buffer zone there because the Russian Belgorod region is being bombarded with drones and missiles from Kharkiv. Former Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the National Security Council, described Zelensky’s trip to Kharkiv as a farewell visit. Because the leadership in Moscow repeatedly refers to Kharkiv as a Russian city, many experts assume that the Kremlin also wants to annex the region. Putin denied this for the first time with the caveat that it was not currently planned.
Zelensky visited the Kharkiv region on Thursday and described the situation there as stable. “As of today, the situation in the Kharkiv region is overall controllable, our fighters are inflicting noticeable losses on the occupiers,” he said on his Telegram channel. At a General Staff meeting, he heard the situation reports from Commander-in-Chief Olexander Syrskyj and the army commanders responsible for the sector of the front. Nevertheless, there are difficulties, Zelensky continued.
According to the Ukrainian military leadership, the Kremlin is deploying around 30,000 soldiers for its offensive in northern Ukraine. They managed to conquer several villages. They also penetrated the outskirts of the small town of Vovchansk. However, both the Ukrainian military and NATO officials do not believe that the Russians’ capabilities are sufficient to achieve a real breakthrough in the region.
“The Russians do not have the necessary troop strength for a strategic breakthrough,” said the commander in chief of NATO troops in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, on Thursday after a meeting of the military chiefs of the member countries. The Russians also “don’t have the skills and ability,” the US general added. “They are capable of making local advances, and they have. But they have also suffered some local losses.”