Yuri Podolyaka: it is a civil war that has cut through many families

By Dragana Trifković

In the past months, we could hear various forecasts and warnings regarding the current conflict between the West and Russia, which concern a high level of misunderstanding on many issues, but mostly on the issue of Ukraine. The Ukraine conflict itself is seen by the West and Russia from diametrically opposite positions. For the West, Russia is an aggressive party that attacked a sovereign state of Ukraine. On the other hand, for Russia, Ukraine is a country under control of the Western power centers, which is committing genocide against the Russian population. According to Russian officials, the reasons for launching a special military operation (as they call the intervention) are threats to the national security of the Russian Federation and the need to protect the Russian population, which has been under attack since 2014. So far, the collective West has not wanted to accept Moscow’s arguments, which has led to today’s situation of the highest level of political conflict between the West and Russia after the Second World War, without direct confrontation. Nevertheless, Russia believes that it is still waging war with the West, taking into account the fact that the West is arming and training Ukrainian army, and also, according to Moscow, is encouraging aggressive behavior of Kiev towards the Russians.