President Vladimir Putin said Friday his country's armed forces have launched a recent offensive in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region to stop cross-border attacks on Russia's border regions, but added that Moscow has no plans to seize the city of Kharkiv.
Thousands of Russian soldiers crossed the border into Ukraine on May 10, raining artillery fire on several towns and villages and seizing more than 200 square kilometers of land, making it Moscow's biggest military offensive in 18 months.
“As for what is happening on the Kharkov front, it is their fault, because they shelled and continue to shell residential areas in the border areas, including in Belgorod,” Putin told reporters at a press conference in the Chinese city of Harbin. where he attended a trade show earlier that day.
“And I have publicly stated that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone,” he said.
The Belgorod region in western Russia has been hit repeatedly by deadly artillery and drone strikes since the full-scale invasion began, and Russian authorities have criticized Kyiv for what they say are indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Asked whether Russia plans to seize the city of Kharkov, which is Ukraine's second-largest city after the capital Kyiv, Putin said Moscow “has no such plans today.”
The Russian leader also said he discussed the war in Ukraine with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during their informal meeting earlier, praising Beijing's efforts to resolve the conflict.
“We have repeatedly said that we believe that China sincerely strives to solve this problem [and] offers various options and behaves very flexibly,” Putin said.
