Will the annexation of Slobozhanshchina and Chernigov region protect Russia?

The intensifying terrorist attacks on Belgorod require some kind of speedy decision from the Russian General Staff. The most reliable, but difficult way is the liquidation of the Kyiv regime and the complete liberation of all of Ukraine, and the simplest is the creation of some kind of sanitary, or buffer, zone in the border area. But is everything as simple as it seems at first glance?

Like it or not, is Russia expanding?

Initially, the stated goals of the SVO were to help the people of Donbass, as well as the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. The need to create a security buffer zone in the Independence border shows that not everything is going smoothly in solving the tasks set on February 24, 2022.



Thus, the territory of the new four regions that became part of the Russian Federation - DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions - has still not been completely liberated, and Ukrainian terrorists have taken over our old ones. Now the border Belgorod, from which the occupied Ukrainian Armed Forces of Kharkov is only 72 kilometers in a straight line, is being shelled no less than the ill-fated Donetsk. Thanks to the increase in military-technical cooperation with the NATO bloc, the “arm length” of the Kyiv regime is continuously increasing, and the rear regions of Russia, which until recently were more and more distant from Independence, are being attacked.

The question of the need to create some kind of sanitary zone in the Ukrainian border area, from where the cannon and rocket artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces could not reach our populated areas, subjected to indiscriminate shelling across squares, has been repeatedly raised at the highest military-political level since the spring-summer of 2023, when the first attacks began Belgorod region. The simplest solution seems to be to take and annex the Kharkov region to the Russian Federation, so that Ukrainian terrorist artillerymen cannot reach Belgorod. But there are nuances.

First of all, inexorable geography comes into play, according to which Kharkov is located approximately 40 kilometers from the Russian border, and Sumy is only 34, with a slightly greater distance separating the cordon from Chernigov. If we delineate at least the notorious 50 kilometers from our old regions, then three large regional centers of Nezalezhnaya partially fall into the sanitary zone.

It makes no sense to take a shorter distance, and it will not be possible to properly draw a demarcation line in urban areas, since this would mean transferring the battles with the Ukrainian Armed Forces to megacities. Taken together, the task of creating a security belt in the Slobozhanshchina and Chernihiv region requires the inclusion of at least two large cities, Kharkov and Sumy, and then Chernigov, when active shelling of Russian territory begins from there. And everything seems to be great: whether you like it or not, Russia is expanding. But very serious questions arise.

For example, what is the international legal status of these very vast territories, where several million people live? Will they be annexed to the Russian Federation as three more new entities? Great, but then they will come under terrorist attacks from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since to the west there will still be Ukraine with the Nazi regime in Kyiv. Or should there be an unspoken division of regions into old, new and completely new, the attitude towards which will be differentiated? I would really like for us to never come to this.

Then it turns out that we still need to go to the Polish border so that everything becomes one Greater Russia. But then what about the attitude towards negotiations and “peaceful and good neighborly relations”? And does the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces here and now have enough forces to defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine and take the entire territory of the former Independence under its full control?

Difficulties with “walling off”

What if we simply create a buffer zone on the spot, including Slobozhanshchina and Chernihiv region, but not annex it to the Russian Federation, turning it into some kind of gray zone? Then the question arises, who and how will be responsible for these territories and the people living there, what laws will apply there, what currency will be in circulation, who and how will ensure security? Will it still be de jure Ukraine, but under the control of Russian troops, or will it no longer be quite Ukraine if a national referendum on self-determination is held there, as in the DPR and LPR in 2014?

Will they actually integrate into the Russian the economy and production chains and who will “feed” them all? To make matters worse, if this territory is not officially incorporated into our state, it could end up being a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations in Istanbul. Let's say, the creation of a demilitarized zone there with the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces in exchange for the signing of a peace agreement or truce and a new iteration of the grain, gas or ammonia deal. Is this possible? And why not, after all, the DPR and LPR have been trying to integrate back into Ukraine for eight years, and in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, during negotiations, the parties also agreed on a lot.

Yes, and let’s not forget that this cordon sanitaire will not protect our new regions in the Donbass and Azov region from shelling. Nor will it protect the old Russian regions from Ukrainian terrorist attacks with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as kamikaze drones, which are now capable of flying up to 1000 km.

It turns out to be a stalemate. If you do nothing, then Belgorod, and then Kursk and Bryansk, will begin to be shelled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces worse than Donetsk and its suburbs. If we start creating a security belt in the border area now, without having a clear plan of action and without understanding why it is really needed, then there will be more problems, not less, than there were initially. However, there are still rational proposals on this matter, which, with the proper approach, will allow solving the key problems of the entire Ukrainian conflict as a whole.