Putin said he was naive, repeating the same old narrative about the "treacherous" West: interview

Russian President Vladimir Putin has again complained that he is being "fooled" by everyone. He called himself "naive" in his assessment of the real aspirations of Western countries, saying that he had "seen the light" only recently.

According to the Russian dictator, after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the West dreamed of "uprooting Russia," dividing it into five parts and "subjugating them to use their resources." Putin revealed his conspiratorial stream of consciousness in an interview with the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin.propaganda program.

In particular, Putin, a longtime KGB officer, called himself "quite naive" because he had a misconception about the West and its intentions towards Russia until recently.

"A certain naivete was present. You know, I'll tell you absolutely sincerely, looking back. Even though I had worked in the security and foreign intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union for twenty years, even though I was later deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, director of the FSB, secretary of the Security Council, and even prime minister, I still had a naive idea that the whole world, especially the so-called 'civilized' world, understood what had happened to Russia and that it had become a completely different country. That there is no longer any confrontation, and therefore no ground for confrontation," he said.

At the same time, the dictator accused the West of numerous "intrigues" against "peaceful and gentle" Russia. However, Putin assured people that he personally attributed these "dirty tricks" to the same "inertia."

"In particular, the support for separatism and terrorism on the territory of Russia was obvious. I saw it as the FSB director. But I naively believed that it was just the inertia of thinking and action. They got used to fighting the U.S.S.R. and continue to do so. There is a certain middle class in the special services and in the media, a middle class that is used to fighting the Soviet Union. And they have nowhere to go. They act in the usual way, and that's it. I thought it was due to the inertia of the movement," the Russian president said.

But then, Putin says, he "saw the light".

"It was a naive idea of the realities. And the reality is that after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., [the West] it believed that we had to be patient for a while. Saying something about tearing up Russia for good. Such a country, which is still quite large by European standards, with the largest territory in the world and a rather large population compared to other European countries, is generally not needed; it is better, as a well-known political figure in the United States, Brzezinski, suggested, to divide it into five parts. And to subordinate these parts separately and use the resources," Putin could not resist the temptation to mention the main "staples" of the Russian Federation: size, oil and gas.

At the same time, the Russian dictator believes that Western countries have allegedly encroached on the "independent weight" of these hypothetical fragments of the Russian Federation. And they sought to deprive fragmented Russia of "the opportunity to defend its national interests": this is how Putin's "new language" refers to Russia's ability to wage wars against neighboring states and occupy foreign territories.

"They acted from the assumption that everything would not have an independent weight, an independent voice, and would not be able to defend its national interests in the way a unified Russian state does. Only later did this realization come to me. And the initial approach was quite naive," the president of the aggressor state said.

Earlier, the ISW explained what was behind the Kremlin head's statements during the "direct line". According to analysts, by outlining the "goals of the SMO," Putin confirmed his maximalist goals. He seeks to overthrow the legitimate government in Ukraine (calling it "denazification"), deprive Ukraine of the ability to resist Russian troops (the so-called "demilitarization"), and impose a "neutral status" on our country, forcing it to abandon its course to join not only NATO but also the European Union.

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