On the future of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the dimensions of the war that has been going on there for more than a year and a half, the Baghdad Riwaq Center for Public Policy hosted the Russian Ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Elbrus Kotrashev

During a seminar held by the Center and attended by a group of political, parliamentary, diplomatic and academic personalities and elites, Mr. Kotrashev touched on the reasons that prompted Russia to choose the option of military confrontation, as he indicated that the actual beginning of tension and escalation between the two sides was when Ukraine launched an attack on the protesters in 2014, At that time, Russia tried not to be drawn into the escalation, adding that it was wrong to call the Russian-Ukrainian war a wrong term that the Western and Ukrainian media deliberately use, while the truth is that it is an armed conflict and a special operation with specific goals, and the state of war was not declared by the Russian side according to what is commonly known. Explaining that there is no problem in the true sense between Russia and Ukraine, rather there is a problem related to the national security of Russia and the national security of Ukraine. A major American fuels this conflict and at the same time prevents the existence of any rapprochement or internal or regional settlement efforts that lead to the end of the crisis.