State Duma Defense Committee member Viktor Sobolev said Russia could fully eliminate Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on its cities if Russian forces reached Ukraine’s western borders.

According to the lawmaker, achieving that objective would require major offensive operations. He argued that, at this stage, there is no other way to reliably protect Russian territory from long-range attacks.

Sobolev said two conditions would be essential: shielding Russian troops from drone strikes and securing air superiority.

He also argued that this task should be completed within the next four years, by 2030. In his view, NATO countries will have finished rearming their forces by then and could be ready for a war with Russia.

Sobolev previously said the buffer zone being created by Russian forces should include the Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa and Nikolayev regions. He described the inclusion of the last two regions as virtually inevitable.

The lawmaker also warned that leaving even a reduced western part of Ukraine intact would continue to tie down significant Russian forces and remain a potential source of threat that Europe could exploit.