A senior Kremlin official says that the Russian police and National Guard will remain in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass to oversee the prized industrial region, even if a peace settlement ends the nearly four-year war — a possibility that is likely to be rejected by Ukrainian officials as US-led negotiations drag on.
Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the front line, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said in comments published Friday in Russian business daily Kommersant.
Ushakov told Kommersant “it’s entirely possible that there won’t be any troops (in the Donbass), either Russian or Ukrainian” in a postwar scenario.
But he said that “there will be the National Guard, our police, everything necessary to maintain order and organise life.”
For months, American negotiators have tried to navigate the demands of each side as US President Donald Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays.
The search for possible compromises has run into a major obstacle over who keeps the Ukrainian territory that Russian forces have occupied so far.
Since Moscow’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and the seizure of territory in the east by Russia-backed separatists later that year, as well as land taken after the full-blown invasion was launched on February 24, 2022, Russia has captured about 20 percent of its neighbour.
Ukraine says its constitution doesn’t allow it to surrender land.
Russia, which illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions illegally in 2022, says the same.
Ushakov said that “no matter what the outcome (of peace talks), this territory (the Donbass) is Russian Federation territory.”
On Thursday, Trump compared the negotiations to a very complex real estate deal.
He said that he wants to see more progress in talks before sending envoys to possible meetings with European leaders over the weekend.
In October, Trump said the Donbass region will have to be "cut up" to end the war.
