Putin Says Russia Wants Buffer Zone in Ukraine’s Kharkiv but Has No Plans to Capture City

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday during a visit to China that Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region aims to create a buffer zone but that there are no plans to capture the city.

The remarks were Putin’s first on the offensive launched May 10, which opened a new front and displaced thousands of Ukrainians within days. Earlier Friday, a massive Ukrainian drone attack on the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula cut off power in the city of Sevastopol, after an earlier attack damaged aircraft and fuel storage at an airbase.

In southern Russia, Russian authorities said a refinery was also set ablaze.

Moscow launched attacks in the Kharkiv region in response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, Putin told reporters while visiting the Chinese city of Harbin.

“I have said publicly that if it continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a sanitary zone,” he said. “That's what we are doing.” Russian troops were “advancing daily according to plan," he said and added there were no plans for now to take the city of Kharkiv.

Ukrainian troops are fighting to halt Russian advances in the Kharkiv region that began late last week. In an effort to increase troop numbers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed two laws Friday, allowing prisoners to join the army and increasing fines for draft dodgers fivefold. The controversial mobilization law goes into effect on Saturday.

Russia enlisted prisoners early on in the war, and personnel shortages compelled the new measures. The legislation allows for “parole from serving a sentence and further enlistment for military service" for a specific period for some people charged with criminal offences. It doesn't extend to those convicted of crimes against Ukraine’s national security.

Penalties will be increased to 25,500 hryvnias ($650) for citizens and 51,000 hryvnias ($1,300) for civil servants and legal entities for ignoring draft notices or failing to update the draft board of their information. Fines were previously 5100 hryvnias ($130) for citizens and 8500 hryvnias ($215) for civil servants and legal entities.

Ukrainian authorities have evacuated around 8,000 civilians from the recent flashpoint town of Vovchansk, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Russian border. The Russian army’s usual tactic is to reduce towns and villages to ruins with aerial strikes before troops move in.

At least two people were killed and 19 were wounded in the Russian bombing of Kharkiv, regional chief Oleh Syniehubov said on his Telegram posting on Friday. Four of the wounded were in critical condition.

Russia's new offensive has “expanded the zone of active hostilities by almost 70 kilometers” (45 miles), in an effort to force Ukraine to spread its forces and use reserve troops, Ukraine’s military chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Friday.

In the Kharkiv region, Russian forces have advanced 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, Zelenskyy said Friday.

Separately, speaking about Ukraine’s upcoming peace conferences in Switzerland next month, Putin said it was a vain attempt to enforce terms of a peaceful settlement on Russia and stressed that Russia wasn’t invited to the meeting.

He said that Russia was ready for talks but shrugged off Zelenskyy’s peace formula as wishful thinking. Any prospective peace talks should be based on a draft deal negotiated by Russia and Ukraine during their Istanbul talks in 2022, he said.

Ukraine meanwhile carried out drone raids on Crimea in an attempt to strike back during Moscow's offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has piled on pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces awaiting delayed deliveries of crucial weapons and ammunition from Western partners.

A Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed to The Associated Press that the country's intelligence services struck Russia’s military infrastructure sites in Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea coast, and in Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol. The official was not authorized to make public comments and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The operation, carried out by Ukraine-built drones, targeted Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels, the official said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region of Russia and six over the Belgorod region. Russian warplanes and patrol boats also destroyed six sea drones in the Black Sea, it said.

At least three fighter jets were destroyed in an earlier attack in Crimea a few days ago, according to satellite imagery of the airbase provided by Maxar Technologies.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, which is the main base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, said the drone attack damaged the city’s power plant. He said it could take a day to fully restore electricity and warned residents of power cuts. He also announced city schools would be closed temporarily.

In the Krasnodar region, authorities said a drone attack early Friday caused a fire at an oil refinery in Tuapse, which was later contained. There were no casualties. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted refineries and other energy facilities deep inside Russia, inflicting damage.

The Krasnodar region’s governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, said fragments of downed drones around the port of Novorossiysk caused several fires, but there were no casualties.

Belgorov Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone struck a vehicle, killing a woman and her 4-year-old child. Another attack there set a fuel tank ablaze at a gas station, he said.

Recent Russian attacks have also targeted the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region — apparently seeking to further stretch depleted Ukrainian resources.

Having boosted their forces in northern Ukraine, Russian forces are now pushing to advance near the village of Lyptsi, as well as the town of Vovchansk, according to Syrskyi, the Ukrainian military commander.

Syrskyi also said he inspected units that are “preparing for defense” of Sumy. On Tuesday, the head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, reportedly said Russia's military planned to launch offensive actions in Sumy.

Russia has also been testing defenses elsewhere along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, which snakes north-to-south through eastern Ukraine. The line has barely changed over the past 18 months, in what has become a war of attrition.

Mingma Rita Sherpa was not home when the muddy torrent roared into his village in Nepal without warning, but when he returned, he did not recognize his once beautiful settlement.
It took just moments for freezing floodwaters to engulf Thame in the foothills of Mount Everest, a disaster that climate change scientists say is an ominous sign of things to come in the Himalayan nation, AFP reported.
"There is no trace of our house... nothing is left," Sherpa said. "It took everything we owned."
Nepal is reeling from its worst flooding in decades after ferocious monsoon rains swelled rivers and inundated entire neighborhoods in the capital Kathmandu, killing at least 236 people.
Last weekend's disaster was the latest of several disastrous floods to hit the country this year.
Thame was submerged in August by a glacial lake that burst high in the mountains above the small village, famous for its mountaineering residents.
It was once home to Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, the first person to climb the world's highest mountain Everest, along with New Zealander Edmund Hillary.
"We are afraid to return, there are still lakes above," Sherpa said.
"The fertile land is gone. It is hard to see a future there," he added, speaking from the capital Kathmandu, where he has moved.
A glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) is the sudden release of water collected in former glacier beds.
These lakes are formed by the retreat of glaciers, with the warmer temperatures of human-caused climate change turbocharging the melting of the icy reservoirs.
Glacial lakes are often unstable because they are dammed by ice or loose debris.
'Rebuild or relocate'
Thame was a popular stop during the trekking season, perched at an altitude of 3,800 meters (12,470 feet) beneath soaring snow-capped peaks.
But in August, during the monsoon rains, the village was largely empty.
No one was killed, but the flood destroyed half of the village's 54 homes, a clinic and a hostel. It also wiped out a school started by Hillary.
Sherpa, like many in the village, ran a lodge for foreign trekkers. He also worked as a technician at a hydropower plant, a key source of electricity in the region. That too was damaged.
"Some are trying to rebuild, but the land is not stable," he said. "Parts continue to erode."
Thame's residents are scattered, some staying in neighboring villages, others in Kathmandu.
Local official Mingma Chiri Sherpa said the authorities were surveying the area to assess the risks.
"Our focus right now is to aid the survivors," he said. "We are working to help the residents rebuild or relocate".
'Predict and prepare'
Experts say that the flood in Thame was part of a frightening pattern. Glaciers are receding at an alarming rate.
Hundreds of glacial lakes formed from glacial melt have appeared in recent decades.
In 2020, more than 2,000 were mapped across Nepal by experts from the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), with 21 identified as potentially dangerous.
Nepal has drained lakes in the past, and is planning to drain at least four more.
ICIMOD geologist Sudan Bikash Maharjan examined satellite images of the Thame flood, concluding it was a glacial lake outburst.
"We need to strengthen our monitoring... so that we can, at least to some extent, predict and prepare," he said.
"The risks are there... so our mountain communities must be made aware so they can be prepared".
Scientists warn of a two-stage impact.
Initially, melting glaciers trigger destructive floods. Eventually, the glaciers will dry up, bringing even greater threats.
Glaciers in the wider Himalayan and Hindu Kush ranges provide crucial water for around 240 million people in the mountainous regions.
Another 1.65 billion people depend on them in the South Asian and Southeast Asian river valleys below.
- 'Himalayas have changed' -
Former residents of Thame are raising funds, including Kami Rita Sherpa, who climbed Everest for a record 30th time this year.
Kami Rita Sherpa said the locale had long been a source of pride as a "village of mountaineers", but times had changed.
"The place has no future now", he said. "We are living at risk -- not just Thame, other villages downhill also need to be alert."
The veteran mountaineer said his beloved mountains were under threat.
"The Himalayas have changed," he said. "We have now not only seen the impact of climate change, but experienced its dangerous consequences too."

Putin Says Russia Wants Buffer Zone in Ukraine’s Kharkiv but Has No Plans to Capture City