'Peace is impossible when your enemy wants you dead', Ukrainian MP says
10 October 2022, 18:55 | Updated: 10 October 2022, 19:05
A Ukrainian MP has warned that negotiating a peace deal with Russia is impossible because Moscow wants to destroy her country, after a series of missile attacks on cities left ten people dead and many more wounded.
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Speaking on LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr on Monday (October 10), Kira Rudik of the Ukrainian Golos (Voice) party said that the attacks show Vladimir Putin is saying: "I don’t care if I kill women, children, civilians. I wouldn’t care, I only care about my victory.
"And the thing is, we care about staying alive, and we care about continue living in our country. This is the thing that makes peace impossible."
'It's a fight of Russian military against Ukrainian population.'
Ms Rudin paraphrased former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, who said in the 1970s that her country could not compromise in the war with neighbours Syria and Egypt because they "refuse to acquiesce to our existence".
And the Ukrainian MP said of Russia: "We want to be alive and our enemies want us destroyed. That means it is impossible to figure out a peace deal between that. This is what’s going on. We have our own plan and that plan is to fight.
"I have not seen or heard any other plan that is better from anybody in the world, from any single democratic world leader. So we will stick with our plan."
Andrew asked if the appointment of Sergei Surovikin to lead Russia's army was a sign of escalation in itself. Mr Surovikin has reportedly been nicknamed 'General Armageddon' by his colleagues for his brutal tactics.
Ms Rudin said: "The commander is known for killing civilians in Syria and creating all kinds of atrocities."
She added: "We thought after the bridge defeat that [Putin] will again be attacking our military, but this is not what happened. So again it’s a fight, military vs military, it’s a fight [of] Russian military against Ukrainian population.
"And again, what are we going to do to protect us against that?"
Andrew Marr: Are we really on the edge of full-scale nuclear war?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow was deliberately targeting citizens with the missile strikes on Monday.
A number of large explosions rocked Kyiv in the morning, the first targeting Ukraine's capital in many months, in a series of cruise missile attacks.
Read more: Andrew Marr: Are we really on the edge of full-scale nuclear war?
It comes after Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of carrying out an "act of terrorism" after an explosion on a bridge linking Russia with Crimea.
The explosions took place around 8.15am local time (5.15am GMT), with air raid sirens sounding in the Ukrainian capital more than an hour before the blasts.
"The idea is try and get Putin to realise he can't win this war!"
The Ukrainian cities of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Zhytomyr, Lviv and Kharkov were also targeted. Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said the country was hit by "multiple Russian missiles," adding Putin's "only tactic is terror".
Police said at least five people have been killed and at least 12 injured in the attack on Kyiv.Among the buildings hit was the German consulate.
One missile hit a children’s play area in the middle of the city’s Shevchenko district near the National University. Further footage shows destroyed vehicles at intersections where people were commuting during the morning rush hour.
Ukraine’s capital was hit with at least five separate strikes.
