Peace in Ukraine will be on Russia's terms, says ex-president

KYIV • A senior Russian security official said yesterday that peace in Ukraine when it comes would be on Moscow's terms as Russian forces struck targets across the country with missiles even as their ground offensive stuttered.

More than two weeks have passed since Russia's last major territorial gain - capturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk - and Ukraine's General Army Staff said yesterday that Moscow's forces were busy shoring up their positions in recently seized territory and mounting limited but unsuccessful ground assaults, albeit in numerous different locations.

Mr Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president who is now deputy head of its Security Council, struck a defiant tone though, signalling that Moscow was ready to do whatever it took in order to prevail. "Russia will achieve all its goals. There will be peace - on our terms," Mr Medvedev said.

He has become increasingly hawkish in his criticism of the West since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to ensure its own security. The Kremlin has said there is no time limit to a conflict which Ukraine and the West have called an unprovoked war of aggression designed to grab territory and erase Ukrainian identity.

Britain's Ministry of Defence, which supports Ukraine, has said it believed Russian forces were unable to advance swiftly due to personnel shortages.

Russia is facing a resources dilemma, it said, as it must decide how much military hardware and personnel to commit to achieving its stated objective of seizing full control of Ukraine's Donetsk region and how much to deploy to southern Ukraine to contend with a Ukrainian counter-attack.

"While Russia may still make further territorial gains, their operational tempo and rate of advance are likely to be very slow without a significant operational pause for reorganisation and refit," the British ministry said.

In a now-familiar pattern, Russian missiles yesterday slammed into targets across Ukraine.

At least one person was killed in a missile strike on the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the regional governor said.

Buildings in a town in the Kharkiv region were also hit, with footage showing piles of rubble being cleared by excavators.

Mr Oleh Synegubov, governor of Kharkiv region, wrote on social media that a 75-year-old man died due to injuries sustained as a result of shelling in the last 24 hours.

Footage from the Odesa region showed badly damaged brick-built buildings smouldering and what looked like the ruins of a long house scorched and without a roof after firefighters put out the flames. Regional administration spokesman Oleksii Matsulevych said on Telegram that the Russian strike had injured at least four people, burned houses to the ground and set other homes on fire.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Parliament yesterday dismissed the country's domestic security chief and prosecutor-general, two days after President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended them for failing to root out Russian spies.

Mr Ivan Bakanov was fired from his position at the helm of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) by a comfortable majority, several lawmakers said on the Telegram messaging app.

The head of Mr Zelensky's political faction said Ms Iryna Venediktova had also been voted out as prosecutor-general.

In a statement published on Telegram minutes before his dismissal was confirmed, Mr Bakanov said "miscalculations" had been made during his tenure, but that he was proud of his record.

Despite the disclosure of Russian penetration of the SBU, American officials had said on Monday that Washington would continue sharing intelligence that Kyiv is said to use to respond to Moscow's attacks.

REUTERS