Putin personally drew a "38th line" for Ukraine, is this an acceptable result for Zelensky?
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is about to enter its third year, and the attitude of the Putin government on issues such as the truce has also changed, and the Russian side now seems to no longer pursue the comprehensive "demilitarization" of Ukraine, but is inclined to draw a "38th line" in Ukraine and establish a demilitarized zone similar to that between the two Koreas.
[Putin put forward the idea of a demilitarized zone]
At the end of the war, Russia needs to establish a large demilitarized zone in Ukraine, and the border of this zone, the "demilitarized line", and the distance between the border of this zone, the "demilitarized line", and "Russian territory" must be far enough to ensure that Ukraine cannot use long-range weapons to attack Russian cities.
Putin's idea of a "demilitarized zone" is very reminiscent of the inter-Korean demilitarized zone in the direction of the "38th parallel".
After the signing of the Panmunjom Armistice Agreement in 1953, the two Koreas established a demilitarized zone with a length of 248 kilometers from east to west and a width of about 4 kilometers from north to south in the border area between the two countries, based on the 38th parallel, and all military activities were prohibited in the zone.
Although there have been some military clashes in the demilitarized zone in the decades that followed, the existence of this buffer zone has in fact reduced the likelihood of large-scale clashes between the border guards of the two Koreas.
[General diagram of the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas]
However, the demilitarized zone that Russia wants to establish now is far larger than the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
Specifically, the demilitarization line proposed by the Russian side is to keep the Ukrainian army away from the Russian border, which means that this demilitarized zone will not involve the post-war Russian-controlled areas, but all of them will be in the territory controlled by Ukraine after the war.
If calculated according to the combat radius of Western-aided missiles such as "Storm Shadow" or some suicide drones produced by Ukraine, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is within the scope of this demilitarized zone.
Naturally, the Russian side also knows that the demilitarized zone cannot be calculated according to the range of drones or long-range missiles that can easily be hundreds of kilometers. For this reason, Putin deliberately emphasized that the long-range weapons he spoke of first and foremost refer to the long-range weapons used by Ukraine to shell Russian cities. To put it bluntly, it is long-range artillery in the hands of the Ukrainian army.
The longest-range artillery in the hands of the Ukrainian side is the "Hippocampus" aided by the United States and Britain, but the West did not equip the Ukrainian side with a 300-kilometer range version of the ATACMS missile, but only provided a 165-kilometer version of the ATACMS missile.
[The longest-range artillery in the hands of Ukraine is "Hippocampus"]
Considering that the "Russian cities" in Putin's mouth actually include all the cities in the four eastern regions of Ukraine. The demilitarized zone envisaged by the Russian side should be a vast area of about 160 kilometers within the Russian-Ukrainian border and the borders of the four eastern regions of Ukraine with neighboring regions.
Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv in the north of Ukraine and even parts of the periphery of Kyiv, Dnepropodyrovsk in the east and other places, Mykolaiv, Odessa and other regions in the south will be included in this demilitarized zone.
Once this demilitarized zone is completed, Ukraine will completely lose the ability to launch a surprise attack to regain lost territory, and it will also be unable to resist the next round of military operations that Russia may launch at any time.
At the current stage, Ukraine is naturally unlikely to agree to this proposal of the Russian side. Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president's office, has clearly rejected Putin's statement and called on all parties to continue to provide military support to Ukraine.
The Russian side probably also knows that the conditions for the construction of such a demilitarized zone are not yet ripe, but this proposal must be said now.
[Ukraine has often shelled Russian border cities before]
First of all, Ukraine has frequently carried out cross-border military operations in the border area with Russia in the north of the country, and border cities such as Belgorod have often been attacked by the Ukrainian side, and even Russian volunteer units within the combat establishment of the Ukrainian army have invaded Russian territory in this way. Not long ago, the Ukrainian side also used a "Patriot" missile to shoot down an Il-76 transport plane flying in Russian airspace.
In this context, the Russian public continues to pay more attention to the question of whether the government can truly protect its own security. Putin's government must now give the people an answer and show its determination to solve the problem.
Secondly, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is about to enter its third year, and Russia has already understood that it will be difficult for it to achieve its initial goal of demilitarization of Ukraine under the condition that the West continues to aid Ukraine, but in order not to fall into war in Ukraine in the future, it must achieve the goal of partial demilitarization.
[Although the Ukrainian side is at a disadvantage, it will not make concessions on the truce issue in the short term]
In this case, it would be a good choice to take the four eastern states of Ukraine and then set aside a demilitarized zone as a buffer zone. Speaking out now, it is also to see whether the domestic parties can accept this plan.
Finally, the failure of Ukraine's large-scale counterattack and the changes in the situation in the Middle East have triggered a series of chain reactions, with more and more voices of Western public opinion advocating peace, and the military aid of the United States and Europe to Ukraine has also dropped significantly. The Russian side is now throwing out this demilitarized zone plan, I am afraid that it also has the intention of testing the attitude of Ukraine and the West in order to arrange follow-up actions.
In other words, the Russian side is now stabilizing the mood of the people at home while offering a new armistice to Ukraine and the Western world. As for whether the two sides will eventually cease fighting and demarcate this demilitarized zone in accordance with Russia's demands, it will depend on the development of the war situation after that.
After all, what you can't get on the battlefield can never be reached at the negotiating table. If Russia wants to force Ukraine to sign the agreement, and if it really wants to achieve this goal, it must at least take the four eastern regions of Ukraine and invade the envisaged demilitarized zone, so that Ukraine will completely lose the confidence to resist.