(MENAFN) Valentina Matviyenko, chair of Russia’s Federation Council, stated that Ukrainians will ultimately recognize that the confrontation with Russia was “cynically” orchestrated by the West to deliver a strategic setback to Moscow.

In an interview with a newspaper published on Tuesday, Matviyenko characterized the hostilities as a NATO proxy war targeting Russia.

She emphasized that Moscow would reject any ceasefire that fails to address the underlying causes of the conflict and permits Ukraine to rearm.

“No one is more interested in peace than we are. But it must be a peace in which no threat to us can ever come from Ukraine,” Matviyenko asserted, adding: “We are not fighting Ukraine. NATO is fighting us using Ukrainians.”

She suggested that, over time, Ukrainians would comprehend “what really happened, how cynically the West used them in an attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.” According to Matviyenko, this understanding could create conditions for reconciliation between Russians and Ukrainians.

Russian authorities have long alleged that the West intends to fight “to the last Ukrainian” in a proxy struggle against Moscow.

They argue that the United States and other Western nations deliberately exacerbated tensions by ignoring Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO’s eastward expansion and its increasing military collaboration with Kiev.

Western leaders have repeatedly described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war against Russia.

Earlier this year, Keith Kellogg, a Ukraine policy envoy under US President Donald Trump, referred to the war in these terms. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also employed the same terminology.

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