‘Russian forces to stay in Donbas even after peace’

A senior Kremlin official says that the Russian police and national guard will remain in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas to oversee the prized industrial region, even if a peace settlement ends the nearly four-year war — a possibility that is likely to be rejected by Ukraine. Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the front line, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Friday. Ushakov told Kommersant “it’s entirely possible that there won’t be any troops (in the Donbas), either Russian or Ukrainian” in a postwar scenario. But he said that “there will be the National Guard, our police, everything necessary to maintain order and organise life.”