Ukrainian general says Moscow unable to ‘swallow’ country but faces guerrilla warfare if it tries to divide it
Vladimir Putin is seeking to split Ukraine into two, emulating the postwar division between North and South Korea, the invaded country’s military intelligence chief has said.
In comments that raise the prospect of a long and bitter frozen conflict, Gen Kyrylo Budanov, who foretold of Russia’s invasion as far back as November, warned of bloody guerrilla warfare.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for calmer language as he distanced himself from Joe Biden’s speech in Poland on Saturday in which the US president called for Putin to be removed from power.
Zelenskiy told a group of Russian journalists that Ukraine was prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia but it would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum.
The Kremlin said it was “not up to the president of the US and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia,” as US officials sought to backtrack on Biden’s comments.
Vadym Denysenko, a Ukrainian interior ministry adviser, said Russia was trying to destroy Ukrainian fuel and food storage depots, as firefighters battled for 13 hours to put out a blaze in the western city of Lviv after multiple missile attacks on Saturday night.
Zelenskiy urged the west to hand over military hardware that was “gathering dust” in stockpiles, saying his country needed just 1% of Nato’s aircraft and 1% of its tanks. “We’ve already been waiting 31 days,” he said. “Who’s in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it really still Moscow, because of intimidation?”
Ukraine enjoyed its most significant counteroffensive success so far as it retook the city of Trostyanets, unblocking a resupply road from the besieged regional capital, Sumy, to Poltava.
The United Nations human rights office said at least 1,119 civilians had been killed and 1,790 wounded in the war, with 15 girls and 32 boys, as well as 52 children whose sex was as yet unknown, among the dead. The true figures were likely to be considerably higher, the UN said.