Yuriy Sak, a top Ukrainian official, provided additional details during an interview with Newsmax about the recent call between his nation's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and China leader Xi Jinping.
Sak, adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, made his comments on Thursday's "Wake Up America."
"China is an important player on the international arena and a player of that magnitude cannot just stand aside," he said. "So, it's understandable that China wants to get involved in this one way or the other. So during that long conversation that our president had with their president, there was exchange of views.
"We have our own peace plan, and we articulated it very clearly to our international allies, and there is a very, very widespread acceptance of the logical side of our peace plan. First of all, Russian troops have to be withdrawn from all Ukrainian territories — that's a non-negotiable part of our peace plan.
"In essence, we're hoping that this is the beginning of our dialog with China. And we understand that China has influence over Russia."
When it was pointed out that China might be supporting Russia in the war, Sak said: "We hope that China doesn't do that. And we hope that China stays neutral and pragmatic, at least. And we hope that China doesn't start providing Russia with weapons.
"We hope that China will use its influence over Russia to speed up the ending of this war on Ukrainian turf."
Sak also said the return of Crimea is not negotiable.
"We will take back Crimea because it is ours," Sak said. "It is internationally recognized territory that was illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. And we have seen what happens when you appease the aggressor when you don't respond to these aggressive actions.
"The appetites only grown bigger. So we now know for sure that we have to take back all our territories unless there is another war in the foreseeable future."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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