Russia Ukraine latest news: Vladimir Putin’s ally Medvedev says Russian war could last ‘decades’

One of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top aides has said the war in Ukraine could last for decades, with long periods of fighting interspersed by truces, a state news agency reported today.

“This conflict will last a very long time, most likely decades,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said.

“As long as there is such a power in place, there will be, say, three years of truce, two years of conflict, and everything will be repeated,” he continued, reiterating Moscow’s claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state.

The remarks by the deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful security council were made during a visit to Vietnam, reported RIA news agency. He had described the Ukrainian authorities as an “infection”.

Ukraine shot down 10 missiles and over 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on the capital Kyiv, the city of Dnipro and eastern regions, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks on Ukraine this month, mainly attacking logistics and infrastructure facilities before an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 10 missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones and two reconnaissance drones.

It said a total of 17 missiles and 31 drones had been launched during the attacks, which started at around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday and continued until 5:00 a.m. on Friday.

Several drones and several missiles hit targets in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, officials said.

There was no immediate word of any deaths.

Russia will have to launch a pre-emptive strike if the West gives Ukraine nuclear weapons, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, former president Dmitry Medvedev, as saying on Friday.

“There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a pre-emptive strike,” Medvedev said.

The fighters are exuberant after their cross-border mission, showing off a captured BRT armoured car and machine guns among their battle trophies, while vowing further attacks in a long campaign and predicting Vladimir Putin’s downfall.

They have not invaded Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, but started a war of liberation, declares Denis Kapustin, the head of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) at a camp in northeastern Ukraine. “We went back to our homeland. There were no Ukrainian soldiers with us; they will not appear in the territory of the Russian Federation. This is our internal problem,” he insists.

Volodymyr Zelensky announced the return of over a hundred Ukrainian soldiers, initially considered missing in the battlefield, who fought in the grinding battle of Bakhmut last night.

“Today we have another positive result from our team working on exchanges. We have returned 106 more of our warriors from Russian captivity – they fought in the Bakhmut sector,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He added: “It is very important that there was no information about many of these 106 people at all – they were considered missing. But we found them. We brought them back home. 8 officers, 98 soldiers and sergeants…”

Russia will need to launch a pre-emptive strike if the West gives nuclear weapons to Ukraine, one of the Russian president’s closest aides has said.

“There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a pre-emptive strike,” former Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said, according to Russian state media.

At the start of this week, an unknown number of paramilitaries entered the Russian region of Belgorod from Ukraine.

The details are both unclear and contested, but what appears to have happened is essentially this: they took over a border post, attacked a few villages on the Russian side of the border north of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and advanced several dozen kilometres further into Russia before being beaten back by Russian troops.

Russia claims they killed 70, but there is no corroboration.

Ukraine says it was a couple of Russian volunteer groups opposed to President Putin, operating independently of the Kyiv government; Russia says it was Ukrainian saboteurs and terrorists operating with the full knowledge and support of Kyiv. But whoever was behind this raid is a secondary detail to the fact that it happened.

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Ukraine is celebrating the return of more than 100 soldiers from captivity.

“Today we have another positive result from our team working on exchanges,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter.

“We have returned 106 more of warriors from captivity – they fought in the Bakhmut sector. It is very important that there was no information about many of these 106 people at all – they were considered missing. But we found them.

“We brought them back home. 8 officers, 98 soldiers and sergeants… I thank everyone who gave this result.”

Russia’s Wagner private army started handing over its positions in Bakhmut to regular Russian troops yesterday, five days after announcing complete capture of the devastated eastern Ukrainian city following the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

“From today at five in the morning, May 25 until June 1, most of the (Wagner) units will rebase to camps in the rear,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prighozin said in a video. The mercenary group’s leader was wearing battle gear and standing beside a war-damaged residential block.

However, Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said Wagner has only handed over positions on the city’s outskirts but “inside the city itself Wagner fighters remain”.

Prigozhin has said his fighting unit would be ready to return to the city if needed.