Putin has 'blown away' Western narratives that Russia is a weak country
The Wall Street Journal writes that it is time for Western countries to abandon the notion that Russia is a weak country on which one can impose one's views.
Russia is not a weak country
During his presidency, Vladimir Putin has tried almost everything to strengthen Moscow's position in key areas, the authors of the article, Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss, say. According to them, the Russian leader has modernized the military, improved international fuel trade, gathered friendly countries around his country and made it clear to foreign partners that Russia's main condition for NATO is that the Alliance abandon its expansion to the East.
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| Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Reuters |
"Vladimir Putin has blown away the Western narrative of Russia as a dying power and shattered any doubts about its ability to take its rightful place on the world stage. The Russian head of state has long drawn on life lessons he learned on the winding streets of Leningrad in the 1960s, such as: 'If war is coming, attack first.'"
The role of Ukraine
According to analysts, with the growth of cooperation between NATO and Kiev, Moscow began to see Ukraine as "something like a NATO aircraft carrier stationed on Russia's borders".
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| The bridge connecting Russia with Crimea. Photo archive |
Journalists Rumer and Weiss recall that in 2007, Western leaders did not take seriously the demands Putin made at the Munich Security Conference, and promised Ukraine and Georgia accession to the North Atlantic Alliance. However, a few months later, Georgia erupted in conflict in South Ossetia./.
