"The more sweat in times of peace, the less blood in times of war." A maxim once pronounced by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the first woman to preside over the UN General Assembly, and now echoed by Andrii Sybiha, Foreign Minister of Ukraine, as a statement of the spirit with which his country faces the ceasefire agreement and, ultimately, the end of the war with Russia.
"We seek a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace. We are prepared to end the war, but we are not the obstacle to achieving peace," Sybiha stated during his intervention on Tuesday at the 10th edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi. "Ukraine has already supported the US proposal for a temporary 30-day ceasefire," he added, an agreement that Russia still needs to accept and that Vladimir Putin will address this afternoon during his phone call with Donald Trump.
Sybiha took advantage of his participation in the roundtable on how to achieve peace in Europe - which also included the Foreign Ministers of Moldova, Latvia, and Hungary - to emphasize that "preventing a frozen conflict is crucial" and that, for this, "appropriate measures to build trust are necessary."
The meeting between Ukrainian and US delegations last week in Jeddah "accelerated this process." "We are ready to implement the conclusions of those meetings and await Russia's response," stated the Ukrainian foreign minister, who added that the path to a ceasefire "will become clearer" after the call between the presidents of the United States and Russia.
Before an audience composed of diplomats, analysts, journalists, and academics, the minister stated that Ukraine "will never recognize the territory occupied by Russia," estimated at "20%", and that "Ukrainian sovereignty is non-negotiable." True to Kiev's goal of joining the European Union and NATO, Sybiha firmly declared that "no country has the right to block our decision to join any union or alliance. That remains our core position."
Returning to the maxim with which he opened his intervention, Sybiha explained that Kiev's priority now is to "have strong diplomacy," something that, according to him, will be possible thanks to the "leadership of Trump and the support of the international community," a sentiment echoed by his Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó: "I hope that in the coming weeks, thanks to the US president, we can celebrate the return to peace in Europe."