Russia wants to split Ukraine into two, as happened with North and South Korea, Ukraine's military intelligence chief said on Sunday, vowing "total" guerrilla warfare to prevent a carve-up of the country.
After more than four weeks of conflict, Russia has failed to seize any major Ukrainian city and signaled on Friday it was scaling back its ambitions to focus on securing the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian army for the past eight years.
A local leader in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic said on Sunday the region could soon hold a referendum on joining Russia, just as happened in Crimea after Russia seized the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to break with Ukraine and join Russia — a vote that much of the world refused to recognize.
"In fact, it is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine," Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said in a statement, referring to the division of Korea after the Second World War.
He predicted Ukraine's army would repel Russian forces.
"In addition, the season of a total Ukrainian guerrilla safari will soon begin. Then there will be one relevant scenario left for the Russians, how to survive,&quxjmtzywot; he said.
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Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesperson also dismissed talk of any referendum in Eastern Ukraine.
"All fake referendums in the temporarily occupied territories are null and void and will have no legal validity," Oleg Nikolenko told Reuters.
Zelensky calls for more tanks, planes
President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded in a late-night television address on Saturday that Western nations hand over military hardware that was "gathering dust" in stockpiles, saying his nation needed just one per cent of NATO's aircraft and one per cent of its tanks.
Western nations have given Ukraine anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles as well as small arms and protective equipment, without offering heavy armour or planes.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko said Russia had started destroying Ukrainian fuel and food storage centres. Appearing to confirm that, Russia said its missiles had wrecked a fuel deposit on Saturday as well as a military repair plant near the western city of Lviv.
Ukraine was mounting small counter-offensive actions as Russian forces try to encircle its forces in Eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said.
U.S. diplomats weigh in on Biden's Putin remarks
Top U.S. diplomats clarified on Sunday that the United States does not have a policy of regime change in Russia, as supporters and critics of U.S. President Joe Biden played down his declaration that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power."
Biden's comments in Poland on Saturday also included a statement calling Putin a "butcher" and appeared to be a sharp escalation of the U.S. approach to Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden says Putin 'cannot remain in power' in fiery speech on Ukraine
1 day agoDuration 0:29U.S. President Joe Biden concluded his speech in Warsaw by stating: 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power,' in reference to Vladimir Putin. A White House official later said Biden was not calling for regime change in Russia. 0:29
Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, sought to contextualize Biden's remarks, saying they followed a day of speaking with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw. Russia's month-long invasion has driven a quarter of Ukraine's population of 44 million from their homes.
"In the moment, I think that was a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day," Smith told CNN's program before adding: "The U.S. does not have a policy of regime change in Russia. Full stop."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a news conference in Jerusalem that Biden was making the point that Putin couldn't be empowered to wage war. But Blinken said any decision on Russia's future leadership would be "up to the Russian people."
Upcoming negotiations
Moscow says the goals for what Putin calls a "special military operation" include demilitarizing and "denazifying" its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a pretext for unprovoked invasion.
A Ukrainian negotiator said the two sides would hold talks this week in Turkey, a NATO member that has good relations with both Russia and Ukraine. A Russian negotiator confirmed in-person talks early this week, without giving further details.
Ukraine has described previous negotiations, some of which have taken place in Russian ally Belarus, as "very difficult."
'Cruel and senseless'
The invasion has devastated several Ukrainian cities, caused a major humanitarian crisis and displaced an estimated 10 million people, nearly a quarter of Ukraine's population.
In his Sunday blessing, Pope Francis called for an end to the "cruel and senseless" conflict.
The United Nations has confirmed 1,119 civilian deaths and 1,790 injuries across Ukraine but says the real toll is likely to be higher. Ukraine said on Sunday 139 children had been killed and more than 205 wounded so far in the conflict.
Ukraine and Russia agreed two "humanitarian corridors" to evacuate civilians from frontline areas on Sunday, including allowing people to leave by car from the southern city of Mariupol, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
The encircled port, located between Crimea and eastern areas held by Russian-backed separatists, has been devastated by weeks of heavy bombardment. Thousands of residents are sheltering in basements with scarce water, food, medicine or power.
