Russia Wants Postwar Ukraine Turned Into ‘Buffer Zone,’ Lavrov Says

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called for Ukraine to be turned into a giant “buffer zone” after the fighting ends, as Moscow continues to signal demands that could undermine renewed US-led efforts to revive peace talks.

Speaking on Russian state television on Sept. 8, Lavrov said Ukraine should become the buffer Moscow claims it needs to prevent future threats from its western neighbor.

“Everyone argues that Russia needs a ‘buffer zone.’ Let Ukraine become this buffer,” Lavrov said, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

In July, Bloomberg reported that the Kremlin no longer planned to return any occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a future peace deal.

Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin intended to keep occupied areas of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions as permanent buffer zones while continuing his push to seize all of Donetsk region, according to three people familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking.

That would mark a significant shift from earlier informal proposals in which Russia was reportedly prepared to return occupied parts of Sumy and Kharkiv in exchange for Ukraine ceding the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Lavrov was asked how Moscow could guarantee that the war would not resume in 25 years. He responded by arguing that Ukraine could not be allowed to retain what he called a “Russophobic, aggressive neo-Nazi regime” that threatens Russia.

The remarks came as US special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday before traveling to Kyiv on Sunday, but the diplomatic effort failed to produce significant progress

Lavrov also said Russia would not accept an outcome in which the “regime ruling in Kyiv” remained in power after the war. He claimed such a government would continue violating “human rights, language rights and the right to choose one’s religion.”

The Kremlin has pushed the idea of a “buffer zone” along Ukraine’s border with Russia for years. Russian President Vladimir Putin first publicly raised the concept in 2023 and has since repeatedly claimed that Russian forces need to expand such a zone to protect Russian border regions.

The comments also echo broader Russian territorial ambitions. Sources close to the Kremlin told The Moscow Times in March 2025 that Moscow was considering seizing additional Ukrainian territory, including parts of Dnipropetrovsk or Sumy regions, before potentially offering it in an exchange for Ukrainian-held parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Lavrov has meanwhile rejected the idea that Russia is currently engaged in meaningful peace negotiations.

In a separate interview on Sept. 8, he said Moscow would continue fighting until the West makes concessions, accusing Ukraine’s Western supporters of repeatedly preventing a peace deal.

He also dismissed new Western proposals on Ukraine, saying Western countries should not “fuss” over their “new ideas.”

The comments underscore the gap between Washington’s push to restart diplomacy and Moscow’s continued demands for a postwar Ukraine constrained by Russian security and political conditions.