Russian Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev used his interview with Western and Russian news agencies and an ultranationalist military blogger to confirm that Russia's demands on Ukraine "remain unchanged" and reject security guarantees for Ukraine.
Medvedev is once again using the nuclear threat to force Western countries, NATO and the US to accept Vladimir Putin's demands for the total surrender of Ukraine.
This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
On February 1, Medvedev gave an interview to "Reuters", the state news agency TASS and the pro-war Russian military blogger and head of the military social media project WarGonzo, Semyon Pegov.
Medvedev said that Russia's demands for an end to the war in Ukraine "remain unchanged" and that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed these conditions during his speech to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in June 2024.
Medvedev also stated that Putin conveyed these conditions to the United States during the US-Russia summit in Alaska in August 2025. In his June 2024 speech, Putin demanded that Ukraine and NATO submit to Russia's initial military demands and cede the illegally annexed Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson regions, including the unoccupied parts of these regions.
Russia's initial military demands included neutrality for Ukraine and the ability for the Kremlin to dictate Ukraine's international orientation. The second demand is for demilitarization, a reduction of the Ukrainian army so that Ukraine cannot defend itself, and last but not least, denazification by replacing the current Ukrainian government with a pro-Russian puppet government.
Medvedev also stated that Russia considers the "dismantling" of the Ukrainian government an "extremely important task" and that the current Ukrainian government "must disappear". Medvedev questioned the legitimacy of the current Ukrainian government and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kremlin officials have repeatedly taken advantage of the lack of clarity about the results of the 2025 Alaska summit, including by claiming that the United States and Russia had agreed on principles based on Putin's June 2024 speech to the Foreign Ministry during the summit.
Medvedev categorically rejected proposals by the Coalition of the Willing, led by Britain and France, to station foreign troops on Ukrainian territory as part of post-war guarantees for Ukraine's security.
Medvedev recalled that Putin, himself, and Lavrov had publicly stated that Russia did not accept such proposals and would consider troops from NATO countries to be "legitimate targets".
Medvedev also demanded that Russia receive security guarantees. The Kremlin initially demanded "security guarantees" in his December 2021 ultimatums to the US and NATO, which amounted to the destruction of the current NATO alliance, calling for a halt to the deployment of forces or weapons systems in member states that joined NATO after 1997.
Medvedev likely intentionally participated in the three-way interview with "Reuters", TASS and Pegov, in an attempt to spread Russia's demands among Russia's domestic and ultranationalist audience, the English-language media and the international media.
Medvedev unequivocally threatened and accused Finland of destroying Russian-Finnish relations.
Medvedev unequivocally threatened Russians who do not support Russia's military actions in Ukraine and possibly against NATO.
Russian forces continue their efforts to capture Liman and subsequently launch an offensive against Slavyansk, but they likely lack the offensive capacity to do so in the short term, in part due to Ukrainian counterattacks in the direction of Kupyansk.
ISW continues to assess that Russian forces are at least several months away from launching a ground offensive against the Ukrainian fortress belt from the north or east.
The Ukrainian government is working with SpaceX to ban all unregistered Starlink satellite terminals from operating in Ukraine as part of a joint effort to counter Russia's use of Starlink to operate drones in Ukraine.
Belarus continues to increase the frequency of its balloon incursions into Polish airspace.
Russian forces have recently advanced into the northern part of Kharkiv Oblast, the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical zone, and near Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, and Hulyaipole.