Putin says Russia wants a buffer zone in Ukraine’s Kharkiv but has no plans to take the city

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday during a visit to China that Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region was aimed at creating a buffer zone but that there were no plans to take the city.

The comments were Putin’s first on the offensive that began on May 10, opening a new front and driving thousands of Ukrainians from their homes within days. Earlier on Friday, a massive Ukrainian drone strike on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula knocked out power in the city of Sevastopol after an earlier attack damaged aircraft and fuel depots at an air base.

The Russian authorities said a refinery was also set on fire in southern Russia.

In response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, Moscow launched attacks on the Kharkiv region, Putin told reporters during a visit to the Chinese city of Harbin.

“I have said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a safety zone, a sanitary zone,” he said. “This is what we are doing.” Russian troops are advancing “on a daily basis as planned,” he said, adding that there are no plans to take the city of Kharkiv for now.

Ukrainian troops are struggling to stop the Russian advance in the Kharkiv region that began late last week. In a bid to increase troop numbers, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed two laws on Friday allowing prisoners to join the army and quintupling fines for conscientious objectors. The controversial mobilization law comes into force on Saturday.

Russia was already recruiting prisoners at the beginning of the war, and the shortage of personnel forced new measures. The law provides for certain persons accused of crimes to be “suspended from serving a sentence and re-enlisted for military service” for a certain period of time. This does not apply to those convicted of crimes against the national security of Ukraine.

Penalties will increase to 25,500 hryvnias ($650) for citizens and 51,000 hryvnias ($1,300) for officials and legal entities for ignoring draft notices or failing to inform the draft board of their information. Previously, the fines were 5,100 hryvnias ($130) for citizens and 8,500 hryvnias ($215) for officials and legal entities.

Ukrainian authorities have evacuated around 8,000 civilians from the latest crisis town of Vovchansk, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Russian border. The Russian army’s usual tactic is to reduce cities and villages to rubble with air strikes before troops enter.

At least two people were killed and 19 injured in the Russian bomb attack on Kharkiv, regional chief Oleh Syniehubov said in his Telegram post on Friday. Four of the wounded were in critical condition.

Russia’s new offensive has “expanded the zone of active hostilities by nearly 70 kilometers” (45 miles) to force Ukraine to disperse its forces and deploy reserve troops, Ukraine’s military chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Friday.

In the Kharkiv region, Russian forces have advanced 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, Zelensky said on Friday.

Speaking further about the peace conferences with Ukraine scheduled to be held in Switzerland next month, Putin described them as a vain attempt to impose the terms of a peaceful solution on Russia and stressed that Russia was not invited to the meeting.

He said Russia was ready for talks but dismissed Zelensky’s peace formula as wishful thinking. Any future peace talks should be based on a draft agreement negotiated by Russia and Ukraine during their Istanbul talks in 2022, he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has carried out drone strikes in Crimea to retaliate against Moscow’s offensive in northeastern Ukraine. This will increase pressure on the numerically and outgunned Ukrainian armed forces, which are awaiting delayed deliveries of key weapons and ammunition from Western partners.

A Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed to The Associated Press that the country’s intelligence services had attacked Russian military infrastructure sites in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast and in the Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The operation, carried out by Ukrainian-built drones, targeted ships in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the official said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, 44 over Russia’s Krasnodar region and six over Belgorod region. Russian fighter jets and patrol boats also destroyed six maritime drones in the Black Sea, it said.

At least three fighter jets were destroyed in an earlier attack in Crimea a few days ago, according to satellite images from the Maxar Technologies air base.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said the drone strike damaged the city’s power plant. He said it could take a day for power to be fully restored and warned residents of power outages. He also announced that city schools would be temporarily closed.

In the Krasnodar region, a drone strike early Friday caused a fire at an oil refinery in Tuapse that was later contained, according to authorities. There were no casualties. Ukraine has repeatedly attacked refineries and other energy facilities deep inside Russia, causing damage.

Krasnodar Territory Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said fragments of downed drones around the port of Novorossiysk caused several fires, but there were no injuries.

Belgorov Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone hit a vehicle, killing a woman and her four-year-old child. In another attack there, a fuel tank at a gas station was set on fire, he said.

The latest Russian attacks also targeted the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and the southern Zaporizhzhia region – apparently with the aim of further expanding depleted Ukrainian resources.

According to Ukrainian military commander Syrskyi, Russian forces are now pushing for an advance near the village of Lyptsi and the city of Vovchansk after strengthening their forces in northern Ukraine.

Syrskyi also said he inspected units “preparing for the defense” of Sumy. On Tuesday, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov reportedly said the Russian military was planning to launch offensive actions in Sumy.

Russia has also tested defenses elsewhere along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that winds from north to south through eastern Ukraine. The line has changed little in the last 18 months and has become a war of attrition.

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