"Russia is a pole." I like this metaphor or analogy - call it what it is, a symbol of well-grounded power. Yes, the poles are necessary -- North and South, for the planet to continue in its axis balance spinning at a 45 degree angle in the universe. Thus, nature has already taught the human beings what needs to be accomplished in order for this new world order to fulfill itself in the 21st Century in this AGE of a new time indeed. To think that the whole planet can be unipolar is to be dumber than a box of rocks. This idea (unipolar) when presented should be cause and pause for those who have minds --- look at how this earth does absent BALANCED POLES to spin naturally. Russia and the EU must recognize what a pole defines in the grand chessboard of reality and not the unreal askew nighmare-daymare of lost yesterdays in the imaginations of those who do not understand the first thing about balance, clearly and physics is therefore, not the physical boundary of absolutes which it is. There is only one way this unipolar can take the planet and it is not towards the balance of two poles. In two words this means, the end.

A major self-imposed handicap in Russia’s relations with the EU is, that it has never repudiated its Soviet past nor made a clean break from it. Eastern European suffered and died under Soviet totalitarian oppression, while Western Europeans lived in fear of a belligerent Soviet Russia whose self-confessed reason for being was to export worldwide the same miserable totalitarian regime under which it and its captive nations already languished. To this day Russia has not apologised for the death and misery which its people, under the Soviet flag, exported to neighbouring countries. Russia’s continued embrace of Stalin’s lie that there never even was a Soviet occupation of the Baltics but that the Baltics supposedly freely and legally joined the Soviet Union, and its creeping rehabilitation of Stalin are as offensive as they are sinister. Political power in Russia continues to be concentrated in the hands of ex-KGB/FSB operatives and their designees, and Moscow not only allegedly interferes in the affairs of its neighbours, but does so in reality. Given such a context, it is no wonder at all that the West is mistrustful of Russia’s intents, and readily interprets Moscow’s initiatives within the Soviet framework which Moscow has never repudiated. Russia would do both itself and the world a huge favour if it unambiguously renounced its Soviet past, reconciled with its victims and sought genuine partnership with them rather than a relationship based on attempted domination.

Great interview. The major part of the so-called "misunderstanding" between the West and Russia comes from certain circles in the West that insist on waging a propaganda war against Russia for their own sectarian interests.

There are movements or thoughts and hopes in Europe that through EU's own defence policy and troops we europeans could free from US and NATO occupation and attchieve the real independence for Europe. In that scene, Russia could help Europe a lot with a new Security Treaty For Europe. Today cold war is over, but NATO is still an organization against Russia. For us europeans it means threat and obvious danger, because NATO is not anymore capable on modern querilla wars, it is too expencive for its member states, and today more than ever a military unit to help and protect USA, not Europe. A close collaboration between EU Defence and Russia within the New Security Treaty for Europe would be the best possible quarantee for stability in Europe.

@marzipan .. you're like a broken record ... bla... bla ..bla .... western and Baltics have a lot of things to apologize for ... hypocrite