Western nations’ hegemonic aspirations and dismissal of Russia’s security concerns have led to the ongoing standoff between Moscow and the West, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview released on Sunday. Ideological differences are only a pretext to advance the West’s geopolitical interests, he claimed.
Putin added that he expected the collapse of the USSR to alleviate tensions between Russia and the West.
“I also thought that key disagreements [between us] were ideological in nature,” he stated. “Yet, when the Soviet Union was gone… the dismissive approach to Russia’s strategic interests persisted.”