According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in its hysterical fear of another Soviet-level Russian power rising, the Western world turned Russia into its boogeyman.
On Thursday, journalist and former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson posted a controversial interview with Putin to discuss the latter’s thoughts on and decisions regarding the latter’s war with Ukraine. The purpose of the interview was to expose Western audiences to a perspective that they otherwise would not have heard due to corrupt media.
Putin revealed that he feels hurt, cheated, and betrayed by the lack of goodwill from the Western world toward Russia. Carlson said in his post-interview video on this subject that “the U.S. government doesn’t like Russia. And like a lot of Russians, he expected the end of the Cold War would be Russia’s invitation into Europe.”
In his interview, Putin indicated that Russia may have joined NATO had the West indicated any desire for it to do so: “The process of rapprochement would have commenced, and eventually it might have happened if we had seen some sincere wish on the side of our partners.”
“But it didn’t happen,” the president lamented. He said that in a conversation with then-President Bill Clinton in 2000, he asked if Russia would be admitted into NATO upon request, to which Clinton at first called the proposition “interesting” and then determined that it was “not possible now.” “Well, no means no. OK, fine,” Putin concluded.
Putin made sure to emphasize the Western world’s constant negligence of Russian interests and requests. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the new Russian government hoped to strengthen Western relations but maintain a balance on the region’s power. Putin claimed that the West promised not to expand NATO eastward. However, it did expand on five more occasions.
“We tolerated all that,” Putin stated. “We were trying to persuade them. We were saying, ‘Please don’t. We are as bourgeois now as you are. We are a market economy, and there is no Communist Party power. Let’s negotiate.’” Each time, Russia’s pleas were ignored. “They said, ‘Well it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.’”
Putin drew the line when Western nations opened NATO’s doors to Ukraine in 2008. He explained that Russia’s main concerns regarding Ukraine’s independence and acceptance into NATO have to do with its sketchy Nazi affiliations, such as Ukrainian allies of Adolf Hitler in World War II and the Azov Battalion currently fighting Russian troops.
It is hard to determine in Putin’s interview why he waited until 2022 to attack Ukraine, although it likely had to do with Ukraine pressing forward to join NATO in 2020. Regardless, it is clear that this has been festering for a while based on decades of Western disregard for Russian interests.
The Western world is stuck in a Cold War mentality. It still unreasonably believes that Russia is the same boogeyman that the USSR was, but this ignores the totally different historical trajectory and political structures of the postwar government. NATO’s continued existence alone, an entity originally invented solely for toppling the USSR, inherently instills this Cold War mentality in its members.
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According to Putin, poor Western treatment of Russia has led it to aggress against Ukraine and seek friendships with our enemies to maintain geopolitical standing and security. Fortunately, he told Carlson that he is open to peace talks: “If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it.”
If the West wants to remove the threat of Russia, it must set aside its unsubstantiated fear of it based on past prejudices and work to prove that it genuinely wants to be friends with Russia — unless Western bureaucrats have some ulterior motives to continue warmongering with their boogeyman.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.