Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly has proposed a cease-fire in his war against Ukraine that recognizes the current battlefield lines, but a top Ukraine official told Newsmax on Tuesday it would be unwise to accept his offer.
"We've seen it so many times in history [that] pacifying the aggressor doesn't work," Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's Minister of Strategic Industries Alexander Kamyshin, told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
"Giving in to a bully doesn't work," he said. "What does work is standing up for the right values. What does work is bringing the perpetrators of war crimes and genocide to justice. And of course, what does work is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies and providing assistance to those who — we are now, and we've talked about this last year, and unfortunately, this is still the case. Ukraine is right now defending the European values [and] world values of freedom and democracy."
Sak has denied reports that Russia is progressing in its offensive in the region of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, which is a stone's throw — roughly 15 miles — from the Russian border. He said the offensive has been stalled, and the situation is under control militarily. But he said Russia continues to bomb the city with abandon from inside its border, and under conditions of weapons agreements with allied nations, including the U.S., Ukraine can't use the weapons to target military assets on Russian soil.
"We need permission to be able to at least hit them right on the border," Sak said. "Because we can see them. We can see how their planes take off and kill our civilians. We can see how they are launching these thousands of glide bombs, and yet we are not allowed to use the weapons."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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