mercatornet.com
2024-11-26
In February 2000, Russia's President Vladimir Putin was asked by a British journalist, David Frost, how he envisaged future relations with NATO and even the possibility that Russia could join the military alliance if Russia was treated as an equal partner. Putin replied:
Russia is part of European culture. I cannot imagine my country in isolation from Europe and from the so-called, as we often say, civilised world. So I find it difficult to image NATO as an enemy. It seems to me that ... even posing the question this way can be damaging.
To Putin, Russia was a great power and it should be treated as such. And yet, he also stated, in an early segment of that same interview with Frost,
I have the impression that our partners all too often remain prisoners of their previous views and continue to regard Russia as a potential aggressor. This is an absolutely wrong picture of our country. It is untrue, and it prevents the development of normal relations in Europe and in the world as a whole.
Even so, on December 14, 2000, Putin announced that Russia no longer viewed the United States as an enemy or even as an opponent. "The United States is Russia's partner", he said.