Putin says Russia will not return seized Ukrainian border areas
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Vladimir Putin (Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS)
Russia does not intend to discuss returning to Ukraine
territories seized on the border with Kursk
Oblast at any potential peace talks, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said
on Oct. 16.
His remarks appear to confirm a Bloomberg
report that the Kremlin dismissed in July.
Putin visited a Russian military command post for the first
time since July 3 and said that, following Ukraine’s operation in Russia’s
Kursk Oblast, Russian forces had been ordered to establish a so-called security
zone in adjacent Ukrainian territory.
Putin said the goal was to “guarantee the absolute security
of Russia’s border regions in the future.” He added that Russia did not plan to
make the issue part of possible peace talks with Ukraine.
On July 22, Bloomberg reported, citing three sources
close to the Kremlin, that Putin had abandoned plans to return some seized
territories to Ukraine as part of a possible peace agreement. The report
referred to areas in Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts that Moscow intends to
retain as buffer zones.
The sources said Putin abandoned any territorial concessions
after the Kremlin interpreted increasingly tough rhetoric from Washington as
evidence that informal understandings allegedly reached during a summit with
U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska in August 2025 had collapsed.
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