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Russian armed forces are creating a “security buffer zone” along the border between Russia and Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. “I have already said that a decision was made to create the necessary security buffer zone along the border. Our armed forces are currently solving this problem. Enemy firing points are being actively suppressed, the work is underway,” Putin said. Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said the plan was “aggressive” and demonstrated that “Russia is the obstacle of peace efforts now.” Thursday’s announcement was made ahead of an expected prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia – an outcome of last week’s face-to-face talks in Turkey, the first time the two countries have held direct talks at any level in three years. The Russian president previously raised the possibility of creating a “buffer zone” in March during a visit to Russia’s Kursk region. He doubled down on the border plan during a meeting on Thursday with members of the government, during which he discussed the need to “restore and rebuild everything that was destroyed” in the border region. “(We must) help people return to their native villages, settlements, (and) where security conditions allow, restore all transport and other infrastructure,” Putin added. The Russian leader is planning on hosting a dedicated meeting to discuss the “restoration” projects, Russian state media reported on Thursday. The announcement comes days after Putin visited Russia’s Kursk region for the first time since claiming to have completely retaken the region from Ukrainian forces, state media reported on Wednesday. Twelve civilians – including two children – were injured in a Ukrainian strike on the town of Lgov in Kursk, the region’s acting governor said Thursday. According to an initial assessment, four vehicles, two houses and one apartment building were also damaged in the “massive” strike, the official said. The Russian leader discussed the new buffer zone with municipal officials during his visit to the region, according to a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor, published Wednesday. The report claims that Putin was asked by a local official to create the buffer zone in Sumy region, to which Putin asked how many kilometers deep the zone should be. Putin also said during his visit that Ukrainian forces were trying to move toward the Russian border, according to RIA Novosti news agency. Kyiv launched its offensive into the Russian border territory last August – the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II – and had held control of parts of the region until late last month. Kyiv had intended on using it as a key bargaining chip in any peace talks. Such dialogue did not materialize until last week, when teams from Kyiv and Moscow met in person in Turkey to begin discussing an end to the war and agreed upon a prisoner exchange – 1,000 people from each side. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russia had received Ukraine’s proposed list of prisoners of war to be exchanged in an expected swap, according to Russian state media. “Yes, indeed, we have received it now,” Peskov was reported as saying when asked about the Ukrainian list. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X Thursday that Ukraine is “clarifying the details for each individual included on the lists submitted by the Russian side.” “The agreement to release 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity was perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Türkiye. We are working to ensure that this result is achieved,” Zelensky posted. CNN’s Lex Harvey and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
