Ihor Zhovkva, a top adviser to Ukraine's president, praised US President Joe Biden's declaration that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power."
"I like the statement of President Biden which was very impressive," said Zhovkva, the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.
Today, Biden reiterated he was not announcing a change in US policy when he made the remark. “I just was expressing my outrage," Biden said.
"But again, it's no use to speculate whether [Putin is] still in power or not," Zhovkva said. "If Russia would become a democratic country, he would not probably stay in power. But since Russia is far away from democratic country, unfortunately we all have to witness probably, for some period of time, him being in power."
Zhovkva's comments came as part of an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, during which he said the country doesn't plan to lose any territory to Russia, but could amend that position should it quickly bring the conflict to an end.
"The general position is we do not trade any inch of Ukrainian territory, but yesterday my President acknowledged that in order to immediately stop the war and to have an immediate cease-fire and immediate withdrawal of Russian troops, we are ready to agree to withdraw Russian troops to their positions they had before February 24th," said Zhovka.
On the topic of recently surfaced video showing what appear to be Ukrainian soldiers shooting men who are apparently Russian prisoners in the knees, Zhovkva disputed the footage's authenticity.
"This video has already proved to be a fake," he said, adding "Ukraine is a civilized country, unlike Russia, and we will be treating any war prisoners according to international law, unlike Russians who are treating Ukrainian civilians awfully ... Ukraine will never be such a barbaric country as Russia."