Russia has repeatedly accused the West of waging a “proxy war” against it in Ukraine by continuing to provide billions of dollars worth of military aid to Kiev while imposing multiple rounds of sweeping sanctions on Moscow.
“It is difficult for me to say what such a shallow, frankly speaking, analysis is based on. The only assumption is that the West does not want to stop this war and sees its own geopolitical interests in this war – primarily from the point of view of its attempts to eliminate another competitor on the world stage in the face of the Russian Federation,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Is Russian Foreign Minister trying to show that Russia did not start the Ukraine war by accusing the West of inciting the war? How realistic is Lavrov's statement?
Ednews discusses those questions with Sebastian Schäffer,Managing Director at the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM), Secretary General of the Danube Rectors’ Conference (DRC),Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Europe of the GLOBSEC Policy Institute in Bratislava.
“We have heard the justification for the actions of the Kremlin from the very beginning. For me it remains the typical approach to blame everyone else and resort to playing the role of the victim”, Sebastian Schäffer said.
According to him, there is no one else than Moscow who is responsible for the war and the war will end if the Russian Federation stops attacking Ukraine and retreats from its territory:
“In a word, the statement of Sergey Lavrov is absolutely not true.”
The expert responded to the question "Does the West cause conflicts in the post-Soviet space":
At the most indirectly, because it offers an alternative, democratic and prosperous future, which is against the interest of the Kremlin and causes interventions, hybrid war up to full-scale invasions.
“Is the West or Russia more interested in solving the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan” question was answered by Sebastian Schäffer:
That is a difficult question to answer, but I would assume that another conflict in the broader region is more in the interest of Putin than the West, however it could also further strain the resources of the Russian Federation.
“I think unfortunately the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation has no interest in realistic statements, but as the experienced diplomat that he is, those statements are not directed towards an audience who is not falling for fake news”, Managing Director at IDM stressed.
Ulviyya Shahin
