The current Russo-Western crisis has its origins in the “arrogance“American after the fall of the USSR, judged its last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, on Friday, on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of his resignation, the formal end of the Soviet Union.
“It went to their heads, arrogance, self-righteousness, they proclaimed themselves winners in the Cold War when we had together saved the world from confrontation“, he blasted.”How can we hope for equitable relations with the United States, with the West in this situation?“, judged Mr. Gorbachev, 90, at the RIA Novosti news agency, denouncing”triumphalism“from Washington.
According to him, the western camp wanted “building a new empire, that’s where the idea of NATO enlargement was born“. The enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance to include countries of the former Eastern bloc since the 1990s is according to Vladimir Putin the root cause of the Russo-Western crisis, because for the Kremlin NATO is the main threat to its strategic security.
The Russian president this month called on the United States and its allies to sign treaties prohibiting in particular any future enlargement of the Alliance as well as any military cooperation in what Russia considers to be its area of influence.
Washington, which considers many of these claims to be unacceptable, nevertheless accepted talks in January to allow a de-escalation, with the West fearing that Moscow would launch an invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic which aspires to join NATO.
Gorbachev welcomes talks
This week, Mr. Putin ruled “positives“the first American reactions to Russian demands, but he also said he was preparing measures”military and technical“to respond to the Western threat.
Mr Gorbachev hailed the talks scheduled for January. “I support them and I hope that there will be a result, which will allow all European countries to feel safe“, he underlined.
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Washington and the European Union accuse Moscow of having massed troops on the borders of Ukraine and threaten it with unprecedented economic sanctions in the event of aggression.
Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from his post as President of the USSR on December 25, 1991, marking the formal end of the Communist Empire. A few days earlier, the leaders of Belarus and Russia had unilaterally announced the end of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin called the fall of the USSR “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century“.
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