MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. Russia will never go to war with Ukraine. Both countries need peace, which is possible only on the basis of a dialogue, the speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on his Telegram channel.

"Russia and Ukraine need peace. The United States and the European countries do not need nuclear war. Let us proceed from this," Volodin said. He stressed that any dialogue "is always better." It should be built "on the principles of mutual respect and protection of the people’s rights."

"The sooner the Verkhovna Rada members realize this, the better it will be for all," Volodin said.

He recalled that when interviewed on Russia’s round-the-clock television channel Rossiya-24, the leader of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, Viktor Medvedchuk, addressed his fellow legislators with a reasonable question why they failed to respond to Russia’s invitations to come for talks.

"The answer is simple: they refuse to go and negotiate, because they are well aware that Russia will not go to war with Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a fresh confirmation of this once again earlier on Friday. But Washington does not like this, and it has been doing everything it can to set our two countries against each other," Volodin said.

"The Verkhovna Rada’s members today bear special responsibility. They should take care of their citizens and the interests of their own country. Regrettably, nearly all problems in Ukraine, a land of kind and industrious people, where back in the Soviet Union the living standard was one of the highest, are rooted in the absence of nationally oriented elites," Volodin said.

He stressed that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, just as his predecessors, is entirely obsessed with how to retain office.

"Ukraine’s independence is 30 years old. Time is ripe for deriving conclusions," Volodin said.

Lately, Ukraine and a number of Western countries have been accusing Russia of getting ready for aggression in Donbass, where an internal armed conflict between Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics has been smoldering since 2014. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said more than once that such statements are groundless fanning of tensions and that Russia does not pose a threat to anyone.