The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will conclude with Kiev's unconditional surrender, according to Scott Ritter, a former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that "Ukraine does not trade its territories, because we do not trade our people."

The message was dedicated to the Third Crimea Platform Summit, where Ukraine discussed ways of "de-occupying" the peninsula, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following a referendum triggered by the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev earlier that year.

Replying to Zelensky's post, Ritter wrote that "it was NATO that suggested a trade. Russia isn't trading anything."