New interview
Photo by Kateryna Lashchykova
Daryna Anastasieva, Kateryna Kazimirova
16.02.2023

— What are the main messages of your answers when you communicate with foreign journalists?

Kozlovsky: I show that this war is new. On the one hand, this is a real armed war. There are ordinary moments, as during any military operations, during which a person, in one way or another, becomes a victim or a hostage. But there are other dimensions. For me, this is also an existential war, a value war. And I emphasize that now, on the one hand, there is a struggle between Ukraine’s orientations for the values of the future — freedom, dignity, human life, and on the other hand — the pseudo-values of the past, which are the core of the revanchist Russian world. This clash has not only our regional character, but even a planetary one. Our partners in the west feel that, otherwise they would not have joined this process. But it must be constantly emphasized so that the view of war is not only horizontal, not only flat but also vertical, in-depth.

Aseyev: I'm trying to talk about the same thing: not how they attacked, but who attacked. The nature of the war is certainly important. It has changed even compared to Donbas in  2014-2016: both in terms of intensity, and the use of types of weapons, and the brutality of the treatment of the local population. But it is important for the West to understand what modern Russia is, and what consequences it has for them. After all, I perfectly understand that somewhere in Paris, Prague, London, people live an ordinary life and watch the war on television. It is important to understand that modern Russia is really a neo-fascist state. Because Putin directly declares that the territory of the former Soviet Union is historical Russia. That's it: there is no Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova for him. It's all the Russian Federation. I am trying to convey this message because while Europe is calm, it is perceived in the same way as stories about concentration camps. But when the Bucha happened, more attention was paid to Isolation. It no longer looks outside the war. Yes, a concentration camp, but look at what they did in the Kyiv region.