Putin: the sanitary zone in Ukraine will become insurmountable for weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a possible sanitary zone in the current Ukrainian territories. At the same time, he noted that it should be difficult to overcome for weapons of destruction, primarily Western production. What such a zone might look like and what conditions are necessary for its creation, the military observer of Gazeta told.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
Putin said he was not ready to say what, how and when Russia should annex, but allowed the creation of a sanitary zone in the territories now controlled by the Kiev regime.
"To create a security zone, which will be quite difficult to overcome, using the means of destruction that the enemy uses, first of all, of course, of foreign production," he said in his campaign headquarters.
Since he did not specify exactly what the sanitary zone would look like, it is possible to present its appearance at this stage only in the form of hypotheses and assumptions.
If we focus on the option in which Moscow and Kiev will sign and ratify a peace treaty of the "peace in exchange of territory" type, and the new state border between Russia and Ukraine will take place taking into account the confirmation by the Kiev authorities of the inclusion of four regions into Russia, then it remains only to clarify what the sanitary zone will look like and what means of defeating the Armed Forces They will not have to be located on the territories bordering Russia.
The list of weapons prohibited for deployment there may include multiple launch rocket systems, highly mobile army missile systems (type M142), units and formations (including home airfields) of tactical aviation.
However, it is not yet clear what the lists of Ukrainian regions will look like, since the situation in the zone of a special military operation is, as they say, in development.
It can be assumed that after the signing of such peace agreements, offensive groupings of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will not be created in certain regions of Ukraine and weapons with a combat radius of, for example, more than 300/500 km will be deployed.
Earlier, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow needs to move away the military infrastructure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the security of Russian regions.
In this case, it remains only to clarify how the delimitation and demarcation of the state border between Russia and Ukraine will be carried out after the completion of a special military operation. And it is from the new state border that the appropriate radii will be determined (distances will be calculated and territories will be named), where a ban on the deployment of certain types of weapons will be put into effect. The list of these weapons will most likely be determined only after the peace talks.
However, it is possible to talk about the new borders between Russia and Ukraine and the details of the peace agreements at this stage only in the form of proposals and hypotheses. So far, the Ukrainian army has not suffered such sensitive defeats on the fronts of its own that would encourage Kiev to start peace negotiations (for example, the Ukrainian authorities have not yet come to the conclusion "final defeat is inevitable, today we are talking about preserving at least part of Ukraine and the remnants of sovereignty"). Only the Russian army on the battlefields will put an end to this issue.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok