Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has listed the Ukrainian territories Russia must control before agreeing to any peace deal. Appearing on Iranian TV, the former president and longest-serving prime minister of modern Russia insisted there would be no compromise on absorbing five Ukrainian regions in full.
Five regions demanded in full
Medvedev said the only path to peace was for Ukraine to surrender the entirety of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea, including the naval city of Sevastopol. The combined territory is slightly larger than England.
“If this does not happen, we will do it by military means,” Medvedev threatened. Of these regions, Russia fully controls only the Crimean peninsula, despite the war starting in 2014.
Demands beyond territory
Medvedev also insisted Ukraine must remain neutral and non-nuclear, abandon its “nationalist course,” and end restrictions on “everything Russian,” including the language.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed more strikes on Russian oil facilities but said he will not replicate Russian tactics of attacking civilian targets.
Attacks and damage
Ukraine staged a massive attack on a Russian military airfield overnight, with at least ten explosions from a drone swarm. A major fire burned at the Khanskaya base in the Adygea republic, used by Russian Su-30, Su-24, Su-34 and Su-35S strike warplanes.
The cost to Russia of a recent strike on Europe’s largest oil tank farm in the Samara region has emerged. Damage from Ukrainian drone strikes on LPDS Samara was estimated at £151 million, according to OSINT analysts.
Zelensky wrote on X: “Importantly, our warriors always find a way to justly respond to these attacks and take the war back to where it came from. Over the past 24 hours, our long-range capabilities effectively struck targets serving the aggressor’s war machine. Our sanctions reached the Samara region, as well as the positions of occupiers operating Iskander missile systems in the Bryansk region. There are new results in the Black Sea. I thank all the units involved for their precision and systematic work. Russia must stop its absurd escalation.”
Russian air defences claimed to have shot down 559 Ukrainian drones overnight. A Russian jet-drone hit the office of Ukrtelcom, a Ukrainian telecommunications operator, in the centre of Dnipro, triggering a major fire. At least five people were injured in a Russian strike with guided aerial bombs on a residential area in the Ukrainian border city of Sumy.
