One of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top aides has said the war in Ukraine could last for decades, with long periods of fighting interspersed by truces, a state news agency reported today.

“This conflict will last a very long time, most likely decades,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said.

“As long as there is such a power in place, there will be, say, three years of truce, two years of conflict, and everything will be repeated,” he continued, reiterating Moscow’s claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state.

The remarks by the deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful security council were made during a visit to Vietnam, reported RIA news agency. He had described the Ukrainian authorities as an “infection”.

A senior ally of President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that the West was seriously underestimating the risk of a nuclear war over Ukraine, cautioning that Russia would launch a pre-emptive strike if Ukraine gets nuclear weapons.

Russia‘s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia, which has more nuclear weapons than any other state, has repeatedly said the West is engaged in a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine that could escalate into a much bigger conflict.

“There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a pre-emptive strike,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Allowing Ukraine nuclear weapons, a step no Western state has publicly proposed, would mean “a missile with a nuclear charge coming to them,” Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012, was quoted as saying.

“The Anglo-Saxons do not fully realise this and believe that it will not come to this,” Medvedev said. “It will under certain conditions.”

Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser, now presents himself as a fiercely anti-Western Kremlin hawk. Diplomats say his views give an indication of thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite.

The West says it wants to help Ukraine defeat Russia but U.S. President Joe Biden has cautioned that a direct confrontation between the U.S.-backed NATO military alliance and Russia would result in World War Three.

Russia says Washington would never allow Russia to arm a country bordering the United States, and the Kremlin says the West is already essentially fighting an undeclared war with Russia.

When Ukraine gained independence after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, it hosted thousands of nuclear weapons. It handed these to Russia under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in return for guarantees of its security and sovereignty from Russia, the United States and Britain.

Russia attacked the city of Dnipro with missiles and drones overnight.

“It was a very difficult night. It was loud – the enemy launched a mass attack on the region with missiles and drones,” Serhiy Lysak, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Dnipro has suffered.”

Lysak said several houses, cars, and private companies, including a transport company and a gas station, had been damaged.

Officials in Kyiv said the roof of a shopping mall, a private house and several cars had been damaged. The governor of the Kharkiv region also reported damage to several private houses and industrial facilities.

Russia, which began its full-scale invasion 15 months ago, has launched hundreds of missile attacks since last October, seeking to destroy critical infrastructure and power facilities.

It has shifted the focus of its missile strikes to try to disrupt preparation for a Ukrainian counterattack, military officials have said.

Ukraine shot down 10 missiles and over 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on the capital Kyiv, the city of Dnipro and eastern regions, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks on Ukraine this month, mainly attacking logistics and infrastructure facilities before an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 10 missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones and two reconnaissance drones.

It said a total of 17 missiles and 31 drones had been launched during the attacks, which started at around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday and continued until 5:00 a.m. on Friday.

Several drones and several missiles hit targets in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, officials said.

There was no immediate word of any deaths.

Russia will have to launch a pre-emptive strike if the West gives Ukraine nuclear weapons, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, former president Dmitry Medvedev, as saying on Friday.

“There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a pre-emptive strike,” Medvedev said.

The fighters are exuberant after their cross-border mission, showing off a captured BRT armoured car and machine guns among their battle trophies, while vowing further attacks in a long campaign and predicting Vladimir Putin’s downfall.

They have not invaded Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, but started a war of liberation, declares Denis Kapustin, the head of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) at a camp in northeastern Ukraine. “We went back to our homeland. There were no Ukrainian soldiers with us; they will not appear in the territory of the Russian Federation. This is our internal problem,” he insists.

Volodymyr Zelensky announced the return of over a hundred Ukrainian soldiers, initially considered missing in the battlefield, who fought in the grinding battle of Bakhmut last night.

“Today we have another positive result from our team working on exchanges. We have returned 106 more of our warriors from Russian captivity – they fought in the Bakhmut sector,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He added: “It is very important that there was no information about many of these 106 people at all – they were considered missing. But we found them. We brought them back home. 8 officers, 98 soldiers and sergeants…”

Russia will need to launch a pre-emptive strike if the West gives nuclear weapons to Ukraine, one of the Russian president’s closest aides has said.

“There are irreversible laws of war. If it comes to nuclear weapons, there will have to be a pre-emptive strike,” former Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said, according to Russian state media.

At the start of this week, an unknown number of paramilitaries entered the Russian region of Belgorod from Ukraine.

The details are both unclear and contested, but what appears to have happened is essentially this: they took over a border post, attacked a few villages on the Russian side of the border north of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and advanced several dozen kilometres further into Russia before being beaten back by Russian troops.

Russia claims they killed 70, but there is no corroboration.

Ukraine says it was a couple of Russian volunteer groups opposed to President Putin, operating independently of the Kyiv government; Russia says it was Ukrainian saboteurs and terrorists operating with the full knowledge and support of Kyiv. But whoever was behind this raid is a secondary detail to the fact that it happened.

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Ukraine is celebrating the return of more than 100 soldiers from captivity.

“Today we have another positive result from our team working on exchanges,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter.

“We have returned 106 more of warriors from captivity – they fought in the Bakhmut sector. It is very important that there was no information about many of these 106 people at all – they were considered missing. But we found them.

“We brought them back home. 8 officers, 98 soldiers and sergeants… I thank everyone who gave this result.”