“I don’t know any borders except the borders of 1991,” Major General Kyrylo Budanov said, referring to the year of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. “Who can force Ukraine to freeze the conflict? This is a war of all Ukrainians, and if someone in the world thinks that they can dictate to Ukraine the conditions under which it can or cannot defend itself, then they are seriously mistaken,” he added.

In an interview, the DIU Chief stressed that to speed its counteroffensive Ukraine urgently needs medium- and long-range missile systems, large-caliber artillery and strike aviation.

“We are waging a war on our own territory. If someone thinks we must have restrictions on using some types of weapons, I would like to remind them that russia here uses absolutely all the types of weapons in its possession, from cruise missiles launched by submarines to strategic bombers. The entire spectrum of russian arms has been employed here, except nuclear weapons, so far,” Major General Budanov said.

“putin is in an absolute dead end. He cannot stop the war and cannot win it. He cannot win for objective reasons. And to stop it, he must acknowledge that russia is not at all the kind of strong and great state that he wanted to portray. I am amazed by russian stupidity. Out of all options that putin had before the beginning of the war, he chose the most brutal and the worst option for him. russian specialists have repeatedly warned him that this option is the last one, and has to be very carefully evaluated. They had much better options for him. Now we see the result,” the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence summed up.