Britain says Ukraine must not be pressured into giving up territory for peace with Russia

Rescue workers move the body of a victim killed when a shell hit a residential building in Kyiv on Friday. Reuters

Britain’s armed forces minister says Ukraine should not be pressured into making territorial concessions to Russia as part of any peace deal to end the war.

James Heappey said the West may have a role to play in brokering an agreement between Kyiv and Moscow, but insisted it would be up to the Ukrainians to decide what terms they could accept.

“This can’t go on indefinitely,” he told Sky News. “If the West has a role to play alongside others beyond the region in brokering that peace and offering something the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with, that’s fine.

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“What I absolutely don’t think we should do – and I have heard some around the West suggest this – is somehow Ukraine should be pressured to give up the Donbas or to give up its claim on Crimea.

A woman cries near a building damaged by shelling in Kyiv as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues. EPA A satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the damage from a Russian strike on Lviv's international airport. AP Destroyed cars hit by shelling in Kyiv. EPA A woman stands in her home after her building was damaged by shelling in Kyiv. EPA A pedestrian looks at a cloud of smoke rising after an explosion in Lviv. AP General view of a street behind a barricade in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa. EPA The UN Security Council meets on threats to international peace and security in New York. AFP US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks with US troops at an army training range in Bulgaria. AP Empty strollers are seen outside the Lviv city council building during an action to highlight the number of children killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AFP Children play on the stage of the theatre of the Ukrainian House where a shelter for refugees has been installed in Przemysl, south-eastern Poland. AFP Smoke is seen above buildings close to the airport in Lviv, Ukraine. Lviv's mayor said the airport was not hit, but an area nearby. Getty Images Ukrainian firefighters try to extinguish a blaze at a warehouse after a bombing in Kyiv. AP Photo President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presents flowers to Kateryna Vlasenko, 16 - who was injured as she fled with her family from the town of Vorzel - at a hospital in Kyiv. Reuters Igor, a 40 year-old Ukranian soldier, embraces his wife in front of his military basement in the centre of Odesa. AFP Ukrainian refugees arrive at the reception centre near Palanca Village, about 3 kilometres from the Moldova-Ukraine border. EPA Broken windows after parts of a Russian missile, shot down by Ukrainian air defences, hit an apartment block in Kyiv. AP People clear debris outside a medical centre damaged by the same Russian missile after it was intercepted. AP A police officer looks through the window of a damaged flat in Kyiv. One person was killed and three injured when debris from a downed rocket hit an apartment in the Ukrainian capital. AFP Firemen working in the rubble after extensive damage in Kyiv. AFP Family members and comrades of Ivan Skrypny, who was killed in a rocket attack on a military base in Yavoriv, pay their last respects at his memorial service in Lviv, Ukraine. Reuters A man feels the despair as his home was hit by debris from a downed rocket in Kyiv. Russian troops trying to encircle the capital have launched early morning strikes on the city for several successive days. AFP UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed shakes hands with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a news conference following their talks in Moscow. Reuters The Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama, which was destroyed by an air strike during Russia's military onslaught in Mariupol, Ukraine. Reuters A satellite image of the theatre before the bombing, with the word 'children' written in Russian in large white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the building. Reuters A Ukrainian woman and her family in a taxi displaying the colours of the Ukrainian flag upon arriving in Madrid with a group of Spanish taxi drivers who drove to Poland to support the mass evacuation of refugees. Reuters A sanitised train arrives in Kielce, Poland, carrying children with oncological diseases who fled Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Reuters A man outside a damaged housing block after it was hit by debris from a downed rocket in Kyiv. AFP A residential building damaged by a blast wave at the scene where debris from a downed rocket hit a nearby apartment block in Kyiv. AFP Evacuees from Mariupol are seen upon arrival at the car park of a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is now a registration centre for displaced people. AFP Legislators applaud Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president, after an address via video link at the Bundestag in Berlin. Bloomberg

“Those are decisions entirely for President Zelenskyy and his government. It is not for the West to trade away Ukrainian sovereignty.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week showed signs of a possible compromise when he said his country “must admit” that it will not join Nato. The former Soviet nation launched its application to join the transatlantic military alliance in 2008.

"For years, we have heard about the supposedly open door, but we have also heard that we should not enter, and this is true and we must admit it," he said.

Despite the ongoing negotiations, Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, a former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato, warned of a possible escalation in the war if President Putin does not get his way.

“Putin cannot accept defeat and therefore, in typical KGB style, if he is facing trouble in one direction he could cause even greater trouble in another,” he told Sky News.

He said the West should “be absolutely on our guard” for a potential chemical attack by the Russians.

The former military chief also warned of a possible attack on a Nato member state, saying the 30-member alliance should be prepared for “the use of tactical nuclear and quite potentially some sort of attack against Nato territory”.

He said to deter such an attack, estern leaders should be clear with Russia about the implications of any such assaults.

He said the bolstering of Nato forces on the alliance's eastern flank was also key to deterring Russia’s aggression.

Despite the ongoing atrocities being committed by the Russians in Ukraine, Gen Shirreff said a Nato-imposed no-fly zone would be a step too far.

He said if Nato did go down this route it should be prepared “to fight a general war against Russia because that is where it would lead”.

“A general war could easily go nuclear,” he said.

Mr Heappey said Mr Putin bears ultimate culpability for any war crimes being committed by his forces in Ukraine, but said the entire Russian military chain of command would be held responsible for their actions.

“Every single person in the military chain of command cannot just hide behind the line they are only following orders,” he told Sky News. “They too are involved in the prosecution or war crimes in Ukraine. This is a stain on the Russian nation.”

On Friday Russian troops continued their assault on Ukrainian cities with new missile strikes and shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv and the western city of Lviv.

At the beginning of the war, thousands of people fled west to Lviv because it was perceived as less likely than other cities to be attacked.

The early morning barrage of missiles on the outskirts of Lviv were the closest strike yet to the centre of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or fight.

Black smoke billowed for hours after the explosions, which hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near the city’s international airport, about seven kilometres from the centre. One person was wounded, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said.