Vladimir Putin, who secured the presidential mandate in the election without an alternative, said that Moscow will not relent in its invasion of Ukraine.
He said that Russia plans to set up a buffer zone on Ukrainian territory along the border with that country in order to protect itself from Ukrainian strikes and cross-border attacks.
The Russian army has advanced on the battlefield as Ukrainian troops face ammunition shortages and depleted manpower.
The front line stretches more than 1.000 kilometers across eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukraine's advance has been hampered, and its troops have increasingly used artillery to target targets such as refineries and fuel depots in Russia.
Also, groups that claim to be opposed to Russia are deployed on the territory of Ukraine, carrying out cross-border incursions.
Putin's comments followed Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian oil refineries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that the Russian military is gaining ground on the battlefield in Ukraine. He made claims that it would be necessary for Russian forces to create a buffer zone on the Ukrainian side of the border to prevent attacks on Russian territory.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that "everything that Russia does on the occupied territory of Ukraine is a crime."
"There must be a just retribution for everything Russian murderers have done in this war and for the sake of Putin's lifetime power," Zelensky said in his nightly address.
Ukraine launched 35 drones across Russia that caused a brief fire at an oil refinery, targeted Moscow and affected power supplies in border areas, Russia said on Sunday.
Of the drones launched by Ukraine, 17 were destroyed over the southern Krasnodar region, four over the Moscow region and the rest in six other regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said via Telegram on Sunday.
"The drones were neutralized, but a fire broke out as a result of the fall of one of them," the operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia said on Telegram.
The fire was extinguished after several hours, and although it did not directly lead to death, initial reports indicated that at least one person died of a heart attack, according to the post.
VOA could not independently verify the reports.
Since the start of the war in February 2022, Ukrainian drones operated by Ukraine's domestic security service SBU have hit 12 Russian oil refineries, Reuters quoted a Ukrainian intelligence source as saying.
The regional governor of Belgorod said that one man was killed and 11 wounded in the Ukrainian shelling in the region. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, said earlier Sunday that a 16-year-old girl was killed in the border region when her house caught fire from a Ukrainian shell.
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