MOSCOW (Reuters) – Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful Security Council, on Wednesday dismissed as “nonsense” Kyiv’s proposal to trade pockets of Russian territory it holds in exchange for Moscow-controlled parts of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Guardian newspaper that he planned to offer Russia a straight territory exchange to help bring an end to the war.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012, said Russia had shown that it can achieve “peace through strength”, including through drone and missile strikes which hit Kyiv on Wednesday.
Russia controls just under 20% of Ukraine, or more than 112,000 square kilometres, while Ukraine controls around 450 square kilometres of Russia’s western Kursk region, according to open source maps of the battlefield.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
