“If Russia does not end its hostilities against us, it will
obviously feel the consequences firsthand even more severely. Our strikes will
reach deeper and become more powerful,” Budanov said.
He said Ukraine is ready for a cessation of hostilities,
which is Kyiv’s official public position.
“We are ready and want to end the war. Of course, on normal,
acceptable terms, not in the form of an ultimatum: Give us everything, and
you’ll still owe us. That will not happen,” Budanov said.
The most realistic scenario for ending or suspending the war
is to freeze the de facto front line as it stands on the day an agreement is
reached, with security guarantees, he said. Ukraine would not legally recognize
the occupied territories as Russian.
“That will not happen, and no one will do that,” Budanov
stressed.
Budanov previously said long-range strikes alone cannot win
a war, describing them as a means of coercion that works only in combination
with other forms of combat.
HUR chief Oleh Ivashchenko previously said Russia would
likely exhaust its resources for the war in Ukraine by 2028 if Russian military
losses remain at their current level.