Bangladesh, May 23 -- In a stark escalation of military strategy, Russian President Vladimir Putin has formally announced that Russian forces are actively working to establish a “security buffer zone” along the border with Ukraine. The statement, delivered during a government meeting on May 22, marks the clearest confirmation yet of Moscows intent to deepen its military footprint inside Ukrainian territory in response to increasingly frequent cross-border attacks.

The meeting, which addressed the volatile situation in Russias frontier regions – particularly Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk – came on the heels of a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian border town of Lgov. The attack, reportedly carried out with US-s...