I was naive about the West – Putin
The president has admitted believing the crusade against Russia would be over after the Soviet Union’s collapse | President Vladimir Putin has said he was wrong to assume the West would establish productive relations with Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In reality, it was determined to break the nation apart, the Russian leader explained. [...] The Russian president said that he had believed that the West understood that Russia had become a completely different country after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that there were no further ideological differences warranting a serious stand-off. 💬 According to Putin, even when he saw Western efforts to support terrorism and separatism in Russia two decades ago, he thought that it was the “inertia of thinking” that was to blame. “They had just got used to fighting the Soviet Union,” he believed. In reality, however, the West was deliberately trying to undercut Russia, the president said. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union they thought they just had to wait a little longer, and then they would break Russia apart as well.” [...] Putin has repeatedly said that the West was planning to split Russia into several states, warning that the Russian people could cease to exist if this happens, and naming its continued unity as the key condition for the country’s success.
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