Russian leader Vladimir Putin told Chinese reporters that Russia’s renewed offensive on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region is Kyiv’s fault.
Speaking to local reporters during his latest trip to China, Putin said the goal of the renewed offensive – which saw thousands of Russian troops intensifying assaults on border towns and villages and seizing over 200 square kilometers of land – is to stop cross-border shelling from Ukraine.
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"As for what is happening on the Kharkiv front, this is their fault, because they have shelled and continue to shell residential neighborhoods in border areas including Belgorod,” Putin told reporters in the Chinese city of Harbin, situated just 500 kilometers from Vladivostok and was once part of the Russian empire.
“And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone,” he added.
A recent Kyiv Post report indicated that some of Moscow’s claimed Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod were likely Russian troops dropping bombs on their own cities by accident.
Putin has constantly framed the war in Ukraine as an act of self-defense against Western threats, where its goal was to stop from being invaded by invading Ukraine.
However, analysts have widely believed the main goal of Russia’s renewed offensive in the Kharkiv region is to divert Ukrainian troops from other fronts.
Similarly, Ukraine has called its attacks on military installations in Belgorod an act of defense since Russia has been launching strikes on Ukrainian territories – including civilian objects – from the Belgorod region.
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Putin added that Moscow at present has no plans to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s regional capital and second-largest city, situated just 30 kilometers from the Russian border.
During his visit, Putin also praised Beijing’s attempt to resolve the war, though the latter’s peace formula contradicts Kyiv’s basic terms.
“We have repeatedly said, we believe that China is sincerely seeking to resolve this problem, offers various options, behaves very flexibly,” Putin said, as reported by AFP.
Putin’s also recently claimed that Kremlin troops were not forced out of the Kyiv region, but withdrew from it after being misled by Western partners that a peace agreement was possible.
He’s claimed that Ukraine does not make peace with Russia – not because of potential murder and torture under occupation, as evidenced by mass graves and torture sites found by Ukrainian investigators in liberated areas – but rather because the West has pressured Kyiv to fight.
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