Kremlin official says Russia will stay in Donbas

Police and guard will be in industrial region, he explains. Ukraine is likely to reject that.

- By Dasua LiTviInova AND ILLIA NovIKOV

A senior Kremlin official says the Russian police and National Guard will remain in eastern Ukraine's Donbas 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 U.S.-led negotiations drag on.

Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine's forces have withdrawn from the front line, Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov said in comments published Friday in the Russian business daily Kommersant.

Ushakov told Kommersant “it’s entirely possible that there won't be any troops [in the Donbas], either Russian or Ukrainian” ina postwar scenario.

But he said that “there will be the National Guard, our police, everything necessary to maintain order and organize life.”

For months, American negotiators have tried to navigate the demands of each side as President 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 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 Feb. 24, 2022, Russia has captured about 20% of its neighbor.