All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's recent statements, specifically one statement that has caught a lot of people's attention, where Putin said that Russia needs to expand its demilitarization zone.

And it has to do this in order to protect the Russian cities, towns, villages, and people who are living close to the borders of Ukraine.

He's talking obviously about Belgarod and Kharkov and the attacks that are launched from Kharkov into Belgarod.

But he could be talking about expanding even further. I think the big

question is, how big of a demilitarization zone is Putin talking about? What did you make of Putin's

comments? I is a very important statement, actually. And obviously, he is only saying what other Russian officials have said before.

I can remember Dimitri Medvedev, who was the vice chairman of the Security Council,

saying way back in autumn 2022, that if the West supplied long-range weapons to Ukraine,

then the Russians would have to expand the zone of the special military operation

to take into account the range of those weapons in order to keep those weapons out of range of Russian territory.

And, you know, just over a year later,

we now finally have Putin saying the same thing.

Now, I think this is a very important statement coming from Putin, not because he's finally catching up with Medvedev, but because what Putin says, unlike what Medvedev says, we can be sure is Russian policy.

Now, up to this time, all military operations that the Russians have been

conducting in Ukraine with their ground troops have been located on territory that the Russians

legally claim to be theirs.

That's to say, the Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk,

Zaporosia, and Heron region. There is some fighting going on in Kharkov region,

but only small parts of Kharkov region have so far been, you know, the places where this kind of

fighting is happening. Now Putin is now talking about the Russians needing to acquire a very big buffer zone in order to protect Russian cities

and Russian villages and all of those things.

And he's specifically citing the Elyushin 76 affair where a transport aircraft and Russian transport aircraft

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