Putin Attributes Confrontation with West to Geopolitics

July 16—Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an interview to journalist Pavel Zarubin that was released July 13, in which he argued that Western nations’ hegemonic aspirations and dismissal of Russia’s security concerns have led to the ongoing standoff between Moscow and the trans-Atlantic sector. Ideological differences are only a pretext to advance the West’s geopolitical interests, he said, reported RT.

Putin added that he expected the collapse of the U.S.S.R. 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.”

Putin went on to say that his attempts to raise Russia’s concerns with NATO’s leaders were in vain. “The West decided … they do not need to follow the rules when it comes to Russia, which does not have the same power as the U.S.S.R.” All of Moscow’s proposals regarding mutual security, strengthening international stability, and reaching agreements on offensive weapons and missile defense were rejected," Putin said. “It was not just negligence. It was based on a clear desire to reach some geopolitical goals. … It has become clear that, unless Russia positions itself as an independent sovereign nation … we will not be reckoned with."

Putin also recounted how, in 2007, he rewrote the draft of the speech that he was to deliver at the Munich Security Conference that year. “I looked at the draft my colleagues prepared, set it aside—and rewrote everything in mid-flight,” Vladimir Putin says, in newly-released video excerpts from “Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years.”

His 2007 Munich speech, in which Putin openly challenged U.S. global dominance and NATO expansion, was not a call for confrontation—it was a warning. “Russia simply cannot live any other way. We will either be sovereign—or we won’t exist at all,” he told Zarubin. He said Russia had made countless attempts to build respectful relations with the West. “But they lied. They promised no NATO expansion—and broke that promise.”

“I hoped they would hear us. They didn’t.”