Ukrainian officials shielded their audacious plan to seize a “buffer zone” in Russia because they did not want objections from Western allies.

“Just a few months ago, many people around the world, if they had heard that we were planning such an operation like the one in the Kursk region, would have said that it was impossible and that it would cross the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday in an address to Ukrainian diplomats. “That is why, actually, no one knew about our preparations.”