Danilov answered whether it is possible to "lease" Crimea to Russia and spoke about the status of Donbas

There can be no "lease" of Ukrainian Crimea to the occupiers. Otherwise, Russia will soon demand to become the owner.

Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksiy Danilov said this in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. He recalled that Russia had already been a "tenant".

"They have already been our tenants: very soon they will demand to become the owners of what they rent," Danilov said.

The NSDC Secretary also spoke about the status of Donbas. In an interview, he was asked whether the autonomy of the demilitarised Donbas is possible with UN guarantees and Ukrainian sovereignty. Danilov replied that Crimea's autonomy was enough for Ukraine.

"Do you remember what was in the Budapest Memorandum? The best guarantee of territorial integrity will be the full and unconditional return of all occupied territories, including Donetsk and Luhansk, under the control of the Ukrainian authorities," the NSDC Secretary stressed.

Danilov also said he was confident that Ukraine would win the war with Russia and that terrorists would be defeated on Ukrainian soil. And our country will return its territories to the internationally recognised borders of 1991.

"Anything that prevents the liberation of our territories to the 1991 borders, especially in Crimea, will be destroyed," Danilov said.

By the way, in the same interview, Danilov stated that there is no alternative to the Ukrainian peace plan, which is based on the demand to withdraw Russian troops to the 1991 border. The only concessions that Ukraine can make are to change the sequence of points.

He also denied reports that the West was allegedly beginning to put pressure on Ukraine to enter into negotiations with Russia.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported:

Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak said that as of 11 August, 58 countries had already supported the Ukrainian Peace Formula. 10 groups have already been set up to implement each point of the formula;

Earlier, a meeting on the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on 5-6 August. The New York Times believes that this summit was the beginning of a broad diplomatic campaign by Ukraine to isolate and weaken Russia;

After the summit, a fake news story appeared on the Internet that Ukraine's representatives in Saudi Arabia allegedly agreed to start peace talks without the mandatory requirement to withdraw the occupiers from the occupied territories. This is fictitious information that has nothing to do with reality.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram channel, Threads and Viber. Don't fall for fakes!