The buffer zone -the Kremlin’s usual code for territories it has yet to seize but fully intends to.

The push came near the village of Horikhove, on the border between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as the Kremlin declared a new phase in its ‘denazification’ campaign. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, claimed that the Russian penetration into the region is part of an effort to create a buffer zone in Ukraine, but this phrase is no more than the Kremlin’s usual code for territories it has yet to seize but fully intends to. Once it is captured, ‘the buffer zone’ will move deeper into Ukraine, again and again, until there is no country left for Russia to invade.

Russian advances into Dnipropetrovsk have so far stretched no more than a few dozen metres. Militarily, the gains are insignificant. But they are symbolic: turning another Ukrainian region into a war zone strengthens Moscow’s hand at the negotiating table. At the recent talks in Istanbul, Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, threatened to seize as many as eight regions if Kyiv refuses to surrender four now. ‘Russia is prepared to fight forever,’ he said, before asking: can Ukraine? With Russian troops stepping into Dnipropetrovsk and seizing a dozen villages in the northeastern Sumy region, Medinsky’s threat is no bluff.