WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Poll says 32% of Ukrainians open to territorial concessions for quick peace

Nearly a third of Ukrainians would accept some territorial concessions to Russia for a quick end to the war, a more than three-fold increase over the past year, although most still oppose giving up any land, a poll showed on Tuesday.

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said its poll of 1,067 people on Ukrainian-held territory from May 16-22 found that 32% would agree to some form of territorial concessions, up from just 10% a year earlier and 19% at the end of last year.

It said 55% of Ukrainians remain opposed to making any territorial concessions.

Nearly 29 months since its full-scale invasion, Russia occupies around 18% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014. Kyiv's troops have been on the back foot this year facing a Russian offensive after their counteroffensive failed to make significant gains last year.

The survey did not ask those polled what territorial concessions they would be open to or how large they should be. KIIS said those polled did not necessarily see concessions as equating to recognising the territory as Russian.

"For example, some people are ready to postpone the liberation of certain territories until the future at a better time," KIIS said in a statement with its findings.

Russia in 2022 unilaterally declared it had annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which it partially controls.

In remarks published alongside the survey, KIIS's executive director, Anton Hrushetskyi, said Ukrainians remained against the idea of reaching a peace settlement with Russia at any cost.

"It's ... important that in the context of possible 'concessions', Ukrainians are against 'peace on any terms'," he said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Iskander strike targets foreign instructors in Ukraine

A missile strike has destroyed a temporary deployment point housing Western instructors and mercenaries, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry has shared a video apparently showing a missile strike on a temporary deployment center near the city of Kharkov in Ukraine that supposedly housed Western “instructors and mercenaries.”

Some 50 foreigners are said to have been killed in the ballistic missile strike, which was conducted using an Iskander-M system, the ministry said, noting that the facility was located in Dergachi, a town in Kharkov region.

The strike comes as Moscow has repeatedly warned that any foreign military personnel operating in Ukraine are considered legitimate targets for Russian strikes and would be relentlessly eliminated.

Last month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated the threat as France hinted at officially sending its soldiers to Ukraine. “The fact is that any instructors who are involved in training the military of the Ukrainian regime do not have any immunity,” Peskov told reporters at the time, noting that “it doesn’t matter whether they are French or not.”

Earlier this month, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) declassified a report in which an agent claimed the French army was “concerned about the increased number of Frenchmen killed in the Ukrainian theater of military operation.”

Moscow’s forces had reported destroying another temporary deployment center for foreign fighters in Kharkov in January, killing what Paris reportedly estimated to be “dozens” of French citizens.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also recently stated that Western military trainers have “long been present” in Ukraine “under the guise of mercenaries” and has emphasized that they represent a legitimate target for Russia’s armed forces.

Reuters/RT