WASHINGTON, September 18 /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday asked the United States for more military assistance and urged it to supply weapons to Ukraine.

“They need more military equipment, both lethal and non-lethal,” Poroshenko told a joint meeting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

In his address, Poroshenko accused Russia of an aggression against Ukraine and also pushed for more sanctions against Russia for the seizure of Crimea.

“I also asked that the United States to be forceful and reflect its principles with the respect of further sanctions against the aggressor,” the Ukrainian president said adding Ukraine would do its best to retake the peninsula.

The Ukrainian president pledged to seek peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis in collaboration with Russia. He noted he had been in contact with world leaders, including President Putin, on how to settle the crisis in eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko said that though the dialogue was difficult, all military hostilities should be stopped.

He said he was ready to grant broad rights to southeast Ukraine.

He pledged to give the “separatists” more rights than any other part of Ukraine ever had in the history of Ukrainian nation.

If the war is about rights and not geopolitical ambitions, then finding a solution is possible, Poroshenko stressed.