Kremlin aide suggests Donbas ‘demilitarized zone’ with Russian police and National Guard presence

The Kremlin could turn the Donbas into a “demilitarized zone” with a Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) and police presence, but only if Ukrainian troops were to also withdraw from the region, a top aide to President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

“It’s entirely possible that there won’t be any troops there, neither Russian nor Ukrainian. But there will be the Russian National Guard, our police, everything necessary to maintain order and organize life,” said Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov on Friday, as quoted by Kommersant.

Reiterating that Russia considers the Donbas its territory, Ushakov explained that in this scenario, the region “[would] be under the control of our administrations.” “If not through negotiations, then this territory will come under the full control of the Russian Federation by military means. Everything else depends on this alone. That is, a ceasefire can only come after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops,” he added.

Replying to a post on X by journalist Oliver Carroll, who said that Ushakov’s comments underscore the “absurdity” of the current U.S.-led peace talks, Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya said that Ushakov was essentially “rejecting” the Trump administration’s proposals. “Wouldn’t it be called Ushakov’s antibodies in clinical immunology or Ushakov’s rejection of the American proposals in international relations? Unless one truly believes that the word ‘absurdity’ isn’t strong enough,” Kyslytsya wrote.

On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the U.S. has floated the idea of turning the areas of the Donbas that Ukraine still holds into a “free economic zone” as a “compromise” with Russia. “They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of the Donetsk region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” he explained. “The Russians want all of the Donbas, but we won’t accept that,” Zelensky added.