Conflict in Ukraine is hybrid war – Lavrov
The conflict in Ukraine is a hybrid war, in which Russia is essentially facing the Western nations that triggered the crisis in the first place, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has insisted. He gave the assessment on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit of G20 leaders in Indonesia.
The minister, who heads the Russian delegation, revealed that the US and its allies were pushing to include the Ukraine issue in the final summit declaration, which participants are set to sign on Wednesday.
“They wanted to add wording that would have condemned the actions of Russia on behalf of the entire G20 club, including Russia itself,” Lavrov said. Moscow’s delegation believes the Ukraine issue to be irrelevant to the summit agenda, but suggested reflecting the spectrum of opinion on the conflict, he added.
“Sure, there is a war underway in Ukraine. A hybrid war that was unleashed by the West and which it prepared for many years, starting with the moment it supported the [2014] armed coup [in Ukraine] and the empowerment of openly racist and neo-Nazi powers,” the diplomat added.
The launch this week of an EU mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian troops over two years, is the latest example Western nations taking part in the “hybrid war”, Lavrov told journalists. Arming and funding Ukrainian troops, supplying intelligence and assisting with identifying targets, which Western nations do, make them participants, he explained.
Lavrov noted that Western nations resembled the USSR in the way they championed the Ukraine cause at unrelated forums. During Communist Party gatherings in Soviet factories “it was considered correct to start a discussion with the obligatory condemnation of American imperialism. Western nations have used a similar approach at the G20,” he noted.
By repeating the mantra about Russia’s supposedly “unprovoked aggression” against Ukraine, Western nations are convincing non-aligned countries that the conflict was actually provoked by them and was not an act of aggression by Russia, but a legitimate response to threats created by the West, Lavrov stated.
