Kievs backers want to provoke a larger conflict with Moscow, Milorad Dodik says

The West is using Ukraine to wage war against Russia, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik told RT on Wednesday.

The president of Republika Srpska, an autonomous region within Bosnia and Herzegovina, was recently added to the "enemy list" on Ukraine's state-linked Mirotvorets (Peacemaker) website. The database has been branded a "kill list" after several public figures listed on it were murdered or died under suspicious circumstances.

Dodik claimed that the US, UK, Germany, and other Western nations are seeking to provoke "a war with Russia, sacrificing Ukraine" in the process.

Ukraine had made "many mistakes," he said, including the persecution of its Russian-speaking minority, which ultimately led to the armed conflict. Dodik cited laws aimed at restricting the use of the Russian language in public life and attacks on the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"Their political elite chose to provoke Russia, attempting to deny Russians their rights to language and faith on Ukrainian territory. That's why the Russian [military] operation is completely justified," he said, adding that Moscow "had the right to protect its people."

"For the Ukrainian people, the most important thing is to achieve peace as soon as possible," Dodik continued, rejecting allegations that he poses a threat to Ukraine as "slander."

Russia has cited Ukraine's refusal to grant autonomy to the predominantly Russian-speaking republics of Donetsk and Lugansk - as outlined in the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements - as one of the root causes of the conflict. President Vladimir Putin has since demanded that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and recognize Russia's new borders, including Crimea and the Donbass regions, which voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

In March, US Senator Marco Rubio described the Ukraine crisis as "a proxy war" between the US and Russia. Moscow has also argued that Western military aid to Kiev makes NATO members "direct participants" in the conflict.

(RT.com)