Kremlin Says War Will Continue as It Claims New Ground and a Buffer Zone

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia prefers to achieve its aims through political and diplomatic means but that Kyiv is not ready for a settlement, so the military campaign will continue, Kommersant reported. He added that continued Ukrainian requests for weapons would not stop the operation, and said Russia was still building a security zone along its border with Ukraine, according to RBC.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had taken the settlement of Petro-Ivanovka in the Kharkiv region and improved their tactical position, RBC reported. These battlefield claims come from Russian official sources and have not been independently verified. Ukrainian and Western accounts of the same front lines regularly differ.

The pattern is incremental advances converted into negotiating leverage, at high cost to both militaries and both economies. Moscow's message is that delay favors Russia and that Kyiv's Western arms supplies will not change the outcome.