Very, very true. Here is a comment from Janusz Reiter, Chairman of the Center for International Relations in Warshaw, and the former Polish Ambassador to the United States and Germany. "... The problem here is that people have the sense that we are facing a deeper change in Europe. The United States’ presence in Europe is decreasing, while Russia appears to be looking to play a larger role."

NATO relations are always negative vs Russia. They always were in the west. One would like to cooperate, but if the other proves to be a selfish scumbag, it simply cant go on like this forever. Once you say to the person its behaviour by only waiting for benefits and itself not bringing anything back in other means, youre bad. It will try getting as much as it can, thinking youre a naive fool. Good will is not something westerners understand. You will be ´too strong´ mouthed when you say and do something when objections are not met. This is a very simplified version of how I view EU-Russia relations.

Pabst correctly analyses that “a lot of Eastern European countries like Poland and the Czech Republic and the Baltic States of course are still very, very suspicious (of Russia).” He further correctly states that as long as such divided opinions remain within NATO, the views of the negatively inclined countries will prevail. Sensible Russian policymakers should therefore conclude that the way to improve Russia’s relations with NATO, and thereby to advance Russia’s own interests, is not by endlessly accusing, deriding heaping scorn on and opposing those Eastern European NATO members, but by actually winning them over to genuine partnership and friendship. This, in turn, depends on understanding why those countries feel negatively about Russia to begin with. Kremlin propaganda about them is the very last source from which to get a sense of reality regarding that matter, but unfortunately the Kremlin appears to believe its own propaganda. The Baltics, Poland, the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries feel negatively about Russia not because they all had a bad breakfast – but because of the terrible things Russia did to them under Soviet flag, and because of what post-Soviet Russia continues to do. It continues to offensively lie about their Soviet past, refuses to reconcile with them, and continues to criticise and oppose them at seemingly every opportunity. Because Russia is not prepared to honestly deal with its own Soviet past, a large part of its strategy for trying to improve relations with NATO is to try to demonize and discredit NATO’s Eastern European members. You’d really think that someone in Moscow would notice by now that this does not work.

@Marzipan6 It is NATO, EU and the US that are totally hostile towards Russia any actions Russia has taken with the exception of the Bronze statue incident in your native Estonia have been reciprocal t these actions Since the collapse of the USSR bombing and destroying the Serbs creating a conduit for the qworst forms of terrorism and organised crime directed and Russia and Eurasia. As well as installing through Soros and his Harvard allies economic shock therapy that delivered the Russian economy and nation into the hands of a non-Russian western aligned oligarchy laundering an estimated $1 trillion overseas, pushing NATO and encircling the country, threatening to launch pre-emptive first strike nuclear policy with the now stalled missile shield, taking Russian Intel and Russian created Northern Alliance from Russia after 9/11 on Afghanistan against the Taliban which the US created and propped up and worked with until 9/11 and stabbing Russia in the back by moving the terrorist from Afghanistan to the Panski Gorge in Georgia to fight in the South, installing anti-Russian in Ukraine and Georgia and launching proxy wars against Russia.