Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and hoped that his large army would bring Moscow to a quick victory against Ukraine, which is considered to have weaker armed forces. However, Ukraine responded with a stronger-than-expected defensive effort that allowed them to launch their own counter-attacks in recent weeks. Ukraine made significant gains over the weekend, with officials saying they took back more than 1,000 miles of territory previously held by Russia in a surprise counterattack near Kharkiv. Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine and was home to 1.4 million people before the war. Amid a string of successes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that it remains possible for Russia and Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war, speaking at the annual European Strategy meeting in Yalta. But he has long stressed that he would not accept a Russian ultimatum. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev speaks during a news conference in Lisbon, Portugal on February 24, 2022. On Monday, Medvedev said Russia would not end the Ukraine war without the “total capitulation of Kiev” despite growing Russian losses. Sean Gallup/Getty Images “We want to end the war, but [our] conditions and possibilities have changed. [Our people do] he does not want to negotiate with terrorists. Although one can contact even terrorists, because at least they know what they want,” he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news outlet. On Monday, Medvedev, who currently serves as the vice chairman of Russia’s security council, responded to Zelensky’s remarks. He said Russia was not interested in negotiations unless Zelensky was willing to meet a major demand. “Zelensky said that he will not conduct a dialogue about who sets ultimatums. The current “ultimatums” are warm-up children for the demands of the future. And he knows them: the complete capitulation of the Kiev regime under the conditions of Russia,” wrote Medvedev in a Telegram post on Monday. His remarks are a rare admission of Russia’s intent in Ukraine. Moscow initially rejected accusations that it wanted to seize Ukrainian territory – insisting it only wanted to “liberate” the separatist Donbass region and prevent Ukraine from becoming a close ally of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), although the war greatly strengthened ties between Ukraine and the West. Although Medvedev was once seen by the West as more reasonable than other Russian leaders, including Putin, he has supported the Ukraine war, occasionally using sharp anti-Western rhetoric. Earlier in September, Medvedev issued a nuclear warning to the West after the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union. He accused the West of wanting to use the Ukraine war to “eliminate Russia from the political field”. “These dreamers ignore a simple axiom: a violent decay of a nuclear power is always a game of chess with death, in which it is known exactly when the check and mate comes: Doomsday for humanity,” he wrote in the Telegram. He also predicted in May that sanctions imposed on Russia would have devastating consequences, leading to the “collapse of the idea of an American-centric world.” Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for comment.
