KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official says Russian police and National Guard troops will remain in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass to monitor the prized industrial region even if a peace settlement ends nearly four years of war — a possibility that Ukrainian officials are likely to reject as U.S.-led negotiations drag on.
Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said in comments published in the Russian business daily Kommersant on Friday that Moscow would approve a ceasefire only after Ukrainian troops withdraw from the front lines.
Ushakov told Kommersant newspaper that “in a post-war scenario, it is entirely possible that there will not be any troops (in Donbas), either Russian or Ukrainian.”
But he said, “There will be the National Guard, our police, everything needed to maintain order and organize life.”
U.S. negotiators have been trying to meet both sides’ demands for months as President Donald Trump presses for a quick end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for a possible compromise has encountered a major obstacle: who retains the Ukrainian territory that Russian forces have so far occupied.
Russia has occupied about 20% of its neighbor’s territory since Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the seizure of eastern territory by Russian-backed separatists later that year, and the seizure of land following a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine says its constitution does not allow it to hand over the land. Russia, which illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions in 2022, expressed the same view. Ushakov said, “Regardless of the outcome (of the peace talks), this territory (Donbas) is the territory of the Russian Federation.”
On Thursday, Trump compared the negotiations to a very complicated real estate deal. He said he hoped to see more progress in talks before sending envoys to potential meetings with European leaders over the weekend.
In October, Trump said the Donbas region must be “carved up” to end the war.
Ukraine’s counterattack
In recent months, Russian forces have exerted firm control over all of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up the precious Donbass region.
It used its vast superiority in troop numbers to plod through the Ukrainian countryside in a corrosive war of attrition, inflicting high casualties and armor losses. Despite being outnumbered, Ukrainian defenders held their ground in many areas and launched counterattacks in others.
Ukrainian forces said on Friday they had retaken several settlements and neighborhoods near the city of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region after a months-long operation aimed at reversing Russian advances.
In recent months, Kupiansk has been one of the most hotly contested areas along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front.
Ukrainian forces began gradually cutting off Russian supply routes into Kupiansk on September 22 and regained control of the villages of Kindrashivka and Radkivka, as well as several areas in the north of the city, according to a statement posted on Facebook by the National Guard Hatiya Corps.
The statement stated that fighting is still continuing in the center of Kupyansk, where more than 200 Russian soldiers are surrounded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday released a video of himself standing on the road to Kupyansk. As he spoke, explosions could be heard in the background.
“Today it is crucial to achieve results on the battlefield so that Ukraine can achieve results diplomatically,” Zelensky said in the video, praising his troops on Ukrainian Army Day.
There was no immediate comment from Russian officials and Ukraine’s statement could not be independently confirmed.
At the end of October, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Ukrainian troops in Kupyansk were under siege and offered to negotiate a surrender. Media visits to the area will prove this, he said.
Ukraine has also developed long-range strike capabilities that use domestically produced weapons to disrupt the Russian war machine.
Its special operations forces (SSO) said on Friday that an operation in the Caspian Sea hit two Russian ships carrying military equipment and weapons.
The SSO said in a statement on social media that the ships, named Kompozitor Rakhmaninov and Askar-Saridzha, were subject to U.S. sanctions for transporting weapons between Russia and Iran. It did not disclose what weapons were used in the attack.
Cross-border drone attacks
The acting governor of the Russian city of Tver, Vitaly Korolev, said on Friday that a Ukrainian drone strike injured seven people, including a child. Korolev said debris from the fallen drone hit an apartment building in the city northwest of Moscow.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian air defense systems destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones overnight.
A Russian drone struck a residential area in Pavlohrad in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and injuring four others, Vladyslav Haivanenko, the head of the local military administration, wrote on Telegram on Friday.
Ole Kiper, the head of the Odessa region in southern Ukraine, said the region was hit by a large-scale drone attack overnight. He said the attack damaged energy infrastructure. Energy Deputy Secretary Roman Andarak said more than 90,000 people were without power Friday morning.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia launched 80 drones across the country at night.
___
Dasha Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/Russia-ukraine