Putin says no plans to take Kharkiv, criticises Ukraine summit

Russia has no current plans to capture the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and is merely establishing a buffer zone in the area because of attacks on the adjacent Russian region of Belgorod, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

He made his comments in response to a question from Russian state media reporters at the end of his two-day visit to China in the city of Harbin.

Attacks this month by Russian troops and armour across the border into the north-eastern Kharkiv region suggest that Moscow now aims to seize Ukraine's second city, having failed to do so at the start of the war more than two years ago.

Putin also criticised the Ukraine peace summit planned next month in Switzerland as a bid to impose conditions on his country to end the conflict.

He had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the operations in Ukraine, said Putin, who has consistently upheld his decision to attack Russia's neighbour despite the heavy costs to both countries.

He gave no further details of the conversation with Xi, whose country has not joined international condemnation of the war.

Ukraine and the West hope that China will send a representative to Switzerland to lend more weight to the meeting scheduled for June 15-16 near Lucerne.

Putin said Russia was constantly being reproached without even being invited to the event. His country's allies also do not see much point in it unless both warring parties attend, he said.

Putin emphasised once again that Russia was ready for negotiations. However, neither Russia nor Ukraine have signalled any willingness to relinquish any territory to the other.

Speaking to journalists in Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that many states would attend the meeting. He asserted that China backed Ukraine's territorial integrity and had no sympathy for annexations in the country.

The aim of the summit in Switzerland was a communiqué for a solution to the conflict, Zelensky said. Ukraine's goals at the event included achieving energy security and an exchange of all prisoners.

Both Zelensky and Putin spoke independently about the French idea of a ceasefire during the Summer Olympics in Paris.

According to the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, Zelensky said the details of the initiative were not clear to him, especially as Russia could use the opportunity to keep moving military equipment towards Ukraine.

Putin in turn criticised the West for demanding that Russia adhere to an Olympic truce, but not adhering to the Olympic idea itself by excluding Russian athletes.

According to the Kremlin, there has been no official French request to consider a ceasefire during the Games, which run from July 26 to August 11. Russia has also expressed concerns that Ukraine could use this window to further arm its forces and regroup.

On Thursday, Zelensky visited the Kharkiv region and said the situation there had stabilized. Russian forces had only managed to reach the first of three defence lines around the city, he said.

At the same time, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently deputy head of the National Security Council, described Zelensky's trip there as a "farewell visit."

Russian leaders repeatedly refer to Kharkiv as a Russian city, causing many experts to assume that the Kremlin wants to annex the region. Putin's denial, at least for the time being, is the first time he has stated that there are no current plans to do so.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities on Friday reported more than 100 Ukrainian drone attacks, causing at least one fatality and damage in various regions.

The Krasnodar region in the south of Russia and the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine were particularly badly affected.

In Belgorod, a woman and her son died after a drone hit their car, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. The father and another man were injured.

A large fire also broke out at a petrol station after it was hit, according to images from the scene.

In Tuapse in the Krasnodar region, there was a major fire at an oil processing plant.

A harbour and an oil depot were hit in the Black Sea city of Novorossiisk, eyewitnesses reported on social media. Local authorities said all drone attacks had been repelled.

In the port city of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, the power went out after debris from a downed drone hit a substation, according to the governor.

The Defence Ministry in Moscow reported that Russian air defences had intercepted or destroyed 102 drones, half of which were over Crimea. Six unmanned explosive boats were also destroyed in the Black Sea, Russia said.