Ukrainians "hope for peace always," but the Russians are indicating that they neither want peace or a 30-day ceasefire, Yulia Sirko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, told Newsmax Saturday.
"Ukraine agreed for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia, and now the ball [is] on the Russian side," Sirko said on Newsmax's "America Right Now." "But unfortunately, the latest announcements and latest comments from the Russian side are telling me that they don't want peace, they don't want this 30-day ceasefire. So we don't see a clear answer from Russia's side."
The two sides were engaged in heavy aerial combat overnight, less than 24 hours after U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin met to discuss the details for an American-led proposal for the cease fire.
But Sirko said that the Russians are trying to put more conditions onto the ceasefire and "make it more difficult."
"I think if you want peace, you have to keep your troops out of the fighting for 30 days," she said. "It's like a first step for the peace negotiations and peace deal."
A large part of the negotiations involve potential land swaps that include locations that house nuclear power plants in Ukraine, and Sirko commented that rather than use those plants as a peaceful energy source, Russia would weaponize them.
"They put troops, they put weapons into the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station," she said. "It's a very big station, and if something happened with this nuclear station, the damage will be not only for Ukraine. It will be a big damage for the southern part of Europe. It's nuclear, I mean, you cannot stop it on the border."
Ukraine would also want to take the plant back because it is a vital part of the country's energy system, and it would be safer for it and other nuclear stations to remain under Ukrainian control rather than Russian, Sirko added.
Meanwhile, she said she believes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has changed his mindset after his contentious meeting with President Donald Trump two weeks ago.
"He has become more reasonable and less emotional," she said. "You cannot make complicated geopolitical deals, including peace deals, with emotions."
Instead, Zelenskyy must remain calm and practical, as it will "take a lot of effort from both sides to stop the war," said Sirko.
"It's a very big war," she added. "A lot of people died, a lot of blood. So, it's not an easy task to stop such big wars. I think everyone should be more practical and less emotional and more negotiable."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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