Presidentʼs Office: Russia wants to create a buffer zone in the Vinnytsia region

The Russian army wants to create a buffer zone in the Vinnytsia region from the unrecognized Transnistria. The Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Pavlo Palisa said that such plans have appeared in the Kremlin for the first time, but he does not yet see sufficient forces in the Russians for this.

Palisa reported this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

According to the brigadier general, the Russian army also plans to create buffer zones in the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions.

Palisa said that in 2026, the main attention of the Russians will be focused on Donbas and, under favorable conditions, on the Oleksandrivka and Zaporizhzhia directions.

He also emphasized that the Russian military does not abandon the idea of capturing Zaporizhzhia, Kherson regions, and in the future, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions.

• On April 5, 2026, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky said that the Russians also want to create a buffer zone in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• The US President Donald Trumpʼs special representative Keith Kellogg said in May 2025 that Ukraine had also proposed creating a 30-kilometer demilitarized zone around the front.
• However, President Volodymyr Zelensky responded at the time that this idea was no longer "live," since it was unclear where to calculate this line, and a 15-kilometer withdrawal could lead to the loss of Kherson.
• In contrast to the Russian plans, Ukraineʼs European allies discussed their own version of a buffer zone. The idea was to create a 40-kilometer buffer zone between Russian and Ukrainian positions as part of a peace agreement. However, some countries at the time feared that a buffer zone would only open the door to a second invasion or new attacks on Ukrainian cities.

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