The Feynman diagram for cumulative proton production is considered. It is shown that its contribution to the production cross section decomposes into two terms. The short-range term corresponds to the contribution of two-nucleon correlations in nuclei. The long-range term describes the process of the mass-shell intermediate-nucleon rescattering. It is explicitly demonstrated that after separation of the long-range rescattering phenomena the short-range contribution is finite. Formulae suitable for numerical calculations of these and similar processes are obtained.