“This [demilitarized] line must… be located at a distance from our territory that ensures the security [of Russian cities],” President Putin said at an event in Russia on January 31. The Russian leader added that he was referring specifically to protection from “longer-range foreign-made weapons that the Ukrainian authorities use to attack peaceful cities.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at an event in Moscow on January 31.
According to RT, Moscow has from the very beginning considered the “demilitarization” and “defascization” of Ukraine as the main goal of Russia’s ongoing military campaign. Putin specifically mentioned a demilitarized zone that would be established in Ukraine by June 2023. At the time, Putin said that the zone could be established if Ukrainian forces continued to launch attacks on Russian cities. He said that the goal of the move was to make it impossible for the Ukrainian army to “reach us.”
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Russia's border regions have been regularly hit by drone and missile attacks as well as shelling by Ukrainian troops since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to RT. This included a missile attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod on December 30, 2023, which killed 25 people and injured 100, according to RT.
In addition, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that 11 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were shot down in Russia's Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh provinces on the night of January 31-February 1, according to Pravda newspaper.
The Russian Defense Ministry also announced that its forces on January 31 destroyed 20 missiles launched by the Ukrainian military into the Black Sea and Crimea, according to AFP. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that fragments from the missiles fell near Lyubimovka, a northern suburb of the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The Moscow-appointed leader of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said debris fell "around Federovskaya Street in the private sector", with no casualties.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force announced this morning, February 1, that its air defense units had shot down two of four attack UAVs deployed by Russia on the night of January 31-February 1, according to The Kyiv Independent news site. The two UAVs were shot down in the Kharkiv province in northeastern Ukraine.
There is currently no information about the reaction of Russia or Ukraine to each side's new statement.
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