Russia Plans to Retain Occupied Territories and Create Buffer Zones — Bloomberg
Russia has reportedly abandoned the idea of making territorial concessions to Ukraine as part of a future agreement to end the war. Moscow also plans to maintain control over parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, turning them into buffer zones.
Dictator Vladimir Putin may agree to return to negotiations only after seizing the entire territory of the Donetsk region.
What Putin Is Seeking
According to the agency’s sources, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains determined to establish full control over the Donetsk region by force, as well as to retain parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions adjacent to the Russian border as buffer zones. Previously, there had been talk of informal proposals under which Moscow might return the occupied areas of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions in exchange for Ukraine ceding the rest of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Bloomberg sources note that Putin rejected the idea of territorial concessions after the Kremlin decided that the informal agreements allegedly reached with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Anchorage summit were no longer valid. Although Washington insists that no agreement to end the war was reached in Alaska, the Kremlin has repeatedly referred to the allegedly existing “spirit of Anchorage”—specifically, the demand that Ukraine cede territories in the Donetsk region in exchange for Russia’s return of the occupied areas in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
Why the Kremlin Has Escalated Its Rhetoric
Bloomberg attributes Moscow’s tougher stance to the intensification of Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory—including on Moscow—which damaged oil refineries and caused a nationwide fuel shortage. At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed a bill proposing new sanctions against Russia, initiated by the late Senator Lindsey Graham.
According to two sources close to the Kremlin, Russia is ready to return to the negotiating table only after Putin achieves his stated goal—the complete capture of the Donetsk region. One of the sources reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense has assured the president that it will establish full control over the region by the end of the year. At the same time, a source close to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow says that the Russian armed forces consider this timeline unrealistic and expect to establish control over the Donetsk region only sometime in 2027.
Bloomberg reported this on July 22, citing three sources close to the Kremlin.
The Russian State Duma passed a law stripping foreign investors of the right to repurchase assets.
In addition, Russian troops attacked Ukrnafta gas stations in the Dnipropetrovsk region for two consecutive nights. Despite the damage, the company says it is doing everything possible to resume fuel supplies to residents of frontline regions as quickly as possible.
On the night of July 11, Russian troops launched a massive combined attack on Ukraine, using ballistic missiles, air-launched missiles, and over a hundred attack drones.
