It's not always Russia's fault

Here it is - that one one big issue on which I wholeheartedly agree with Vladimir Putin: there is a New Cold War, it didn't have to happen, and Russia didn't start it.

There. I said it.

Russia and the West are strategic adversaries again because:

1) During the 1990s, the West treated Russia as a weakling (it was) whose interests it didn't need to pay attention to.

2) Since 2000, the West has treated Russia like a hostile entity. It was a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The second point is the one the New Cold Warriors in Washington and Brussels are most likely to take issue with. But the common Western narrative - that Putin is KGB to the soul and was always going to be hell-bent on avenging the collapse of the USSR - overlooks Putin's initial moves to befriend the West after taking office, particularly his overt willingness to help after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

True, he was motivated by his own interests - getting the West to see his dirty war in Chechnya as part of a wider "war on terror" - but the steps he took were genuine. By easing the way for the U.S. to establish airbases in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, he greenlighted the first-ever NATO military presence in an area that had been Russia's zone of influence since the time of the Tsars. Russia also offered to share its intelligence and advice on Afghanistan, something that perhaps should have been of more interest to the U.S. and its allies, since we now find ourselves just as bogged down there as the Red Army was in the 1980s.

What did Russia get in return? American troops in Georgia. The eastward expansion of NATO all the way into the Baltic states, with talk of Ukraine being eventually added as well. The planned missile defense shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

None of these moves is necessarily threatening until you combine them with the West's refusal to talk seriously about including Russia in NATO, or the White House's stubborn refusal to contemplate a missile shield based in Azerbaijan (the country closest to the alleged Iranian threat) instead of Eastern Europe.

"It's not our fault, we didn't start … funnelling multi-billions of dollars into developing weapons systems," Putin said today in announcing that Russia would join what he defined as "a new arms race."

He went on: "We drew down our bases in Cuba and in Vietnam. What did we get? New American bases in Romania, Bulgaria. A new third missile defence region in Poland." That's not just how the Kremlin and its ultranationalist friends view it - that's how most Russians see things.

It's worth noting that as Putin gave his speech, NATO was meeting in Vilnius, the capital of ex-Soviet Lithuania. If NATO is not an anti-Russian alliance, why does it expand up to the Russian border without inviting Moscow to join? If the missile shield is not directed against Russia, why not base it in Azerbaijan?

The West - after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism - laughed at its defeated adversary and ignored its concerns. Now that Russia is resurgent and has the funds to rejoin the fight, that arrogance comes home to roost. We treated it as an enemy until it became one.

It didn't have to be this way.

Reflections from a land (almost) without wireless

I've been unable to blog for almost two weeks now, hit by the double-whammy of being busy reporting on the crisis along the Iraq-Turkey border (as always, you can find my latest reports at The Globe and Mail website) and the fact that Turkey's telecommunications sector has gone on strike, making Internet access scarce in some of the places I've been the last little while.

To catch up quickly, short notes on a few things that caught my eye this week:

New rhetorical heights: Putin is banging the drum lounder than ever today, warning the United States (and Poland and the Czech Republic) against the planned missile defense system for Europe. This time he's comparing the situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis that almost started a nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR back in 1962. "I would remind you how relations were developing in an analogous situation in the middle of the 1960s," Putin said in a press conference at the end of today's Russia-EU summit. "Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets on Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis.... For us, technologically, the situation is very similar."

An overstatement, perhaps, given that the Soviet Union was deploying offensive weapons in the Carribean back in 1962, while the White House is contemplating a defensive shield today. But Putin's point is valid: George W. Bush's provocative plan to set up a missile defense network in in Eastern Europe, like Nikita Khrushchev's decision to sneak missiles into Cuba, would have the effect of changing the nuclear balance-of-power. Russia, as Putin has repeatedly made clear, would have to do something to counter that, likely by restarting the Cold War arms race and developing new missiles and warheads that could overwhelm any system the U.S. builds.

Does the world need this? Given that any Iranian nuclear threat is still theoretical at this stage, why is Bush so determined to go ahead with the shield plan when it delivers few strategic benefits and is so provocative to the Kremlin?

If a vote is cast in Siberia and nobody monitors it, is anybody elected? The Moscow Times has an interesting front-page report today on the troubles international election monitors are facing getting registered ahead of the looming Duma elections.

No surprise here - you can argue (as I do in my book) that without international monitors from the OSCE and other organizations, the authorities in Georgia and Ukraine would have gotten away with their election tampering and there would have been no Rose or Orange Revolution.

When Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky says "we do not want to listen to any lectures," he's hinting at what everybody already knows will happen:

1) there will be electoral manipulation (either through physical means at the ballot box, or through the use of "administrative resources" to tilt the playing field before voting day) to ensure that Putin and United Russia win by an acceptably large margin.

2) the West, and more specifically monitors from the OSCE and other groups, will complain about it, providing fuel to those who are planning to take to the streets on and after election day.

Election monitors provided a causus belli and the moral high ground to pro-Western demonstrators in Belgrade in 2000, Tbilisi in 2003 and Kiev in 2004. The Kremlin is doing everything it can to ensure that it doesn't happen in Moscow in 2007.

Prepare the way for PM Yulia, Take 2: Ukraine's High Administrative Court has finally validated the results of the Sept. 30 election, meaning that an already negotiated power-sharing deal between on-again Orange Revolution allies Yulia Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko can finally kick in. Tymoshenko will be prime minister, while the cabinet posts will be split between her party and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine movement.

When I interviewed The Braided One back in April at her Kiev office, I asked her why the Orange team deserved another chance after she and Yushchenko squandered the mandate the people gave them back in 2004, spending more time publicly dquabbling over the spoils of power than they did tackling the country's endemic problems. Yushchenko eventually fired her, setting the stage for Viktor Yanukovich's startling political comeback.

Tymoshenko correctly predicted that the reformed Orange team would win the vote, and promised that the pro-Westerners had learned from their mistakes and deserved another chance to govern. "I firmly believe that ... these early elections will give us a new chance that we will not misuse or lose," she told me.

I hope so.

Alisher Saipov, 1981-2007: Another journalist brutally murdered, this time an Uzbek reporter who had recently founded a newspaper called Siyosat. The paper's name means "Politics" - a dangerous thing to report on in that part of the world. Saipov also reported for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, as well as the Uzbek-language services of Voice of America and Radio Liberty.

No question it was an assassination: he was shot three times as he walked the main street of Osh, in southern Kyrgzstan, on Wednesday night.

Read the IWPR's tribute to Saipov here.

Back to the arms race?

So Russia today officially suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. It's been coming for a while now, but it's still stunning to contemplate: one of the agreements that brought an end to the Cold War has just been tossed out the window.

Yes, the updated (1999) version of the treaty had never been ratified by NATO (Russophiles will highlight this part). Yes, Russia had never fulfilled its promises to remove its troops from breakaway regions of Georgia and Moldova (Russia-bashers will emphasize this). Yes, there's a 150-day window before the Kremlin's announcement comes into effect (cooler heads will note). But the fact that the withdrawal happened says a lot about how bad relations between Russia and the West have gotten in the past seven years, and is a stark warning about how bad they could get unless both sides find a common language to speak in.

I for one can't wait until we get some new faces in both the Kremlin and the White House so that they can start undoing what the ex-KGB man and the son of the CIA boss have wrought. Today's announcement again makes plain how little friendly substance there was behind those phony smiles at last week's "lobster summit" at the Bush family residence in Kennebunkport.

On another front, I don't need to repeat how dismayed I am that the effort to find a single liberal opposition candidate for the 2008 presidential elections has collapsed. But Viktor Andreyev's eyewitness report over at Robert Amsterdam's blog was particularly depressing. Someone tell Oborona that it's all for naught if Russia's dwindling number of pro-Western liberals can't even agree among themselves.

I'll bet the revolution-makers, oops, democracy promoters over at the National Endowment for Democracy are in full panic mode just now.

Me and Viktor Andriyovych

As promised, the full transcript of my interview yesterday with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (that's me on the far right in the photo, looking studious, courtesy of the presidential press service):

MM: The question that a lot of people in the West are wondering is, do you believe Ukraine’s political crisis is now over, or is it on hold until the elections when it will begin again?

VY: I’ll start with the following: the plan has already been adopted regarding all the issues to solve the political crisis.

After the events that took place… in March, the political corruption, the only constitutional way to settle the crisis was early elections. All the political participants in the crisis acknowledged that, and all the political parties approved the date of Sept. 30 [for the elections]. All the decisions are made to hold the elections, from the standpoint of funding, as well as the amendments necessary to the legislation. So this is the essence of the answer: the political crisis is over.

There was a way to settle it through means of early elections. On the basis of this concept, there is some occasional speculation [that elections will not be held], triggered by some political parties, for instance the Socialists and the Communists. The key task for them is to use the parliamentary tribune as much as possible.

Even though they acknowledge the fact that it is an illegitimate parliament, they’re still ready to attend the sessions because this is the only way for them to keep at least some kind of support in Ukrainian society. And they are threatening, blackmailing the Party of Regions to leave the coalition [government] because they are against [early elections].

I’ve sent a verbal note to embassies around the world that the parliament is invalid, and all its decisions are also invalid. It has no impact on domestic or international relations.

This is only a political show, and nothing more.

The main thing is that all Ukrainian politicians have managed to settle probably one of the most complicated political crises ever in Ukrainian history, in a democratic way. I think this is the main victory.

MM: Why did you feel it was necessary, in the middle of this crisis, to take over the Interior Ministry’s troops?

VY: I haven’t given a single instruction to reign in any internal troops beyond the demands of the current situation.

At the end of May, Kyiv was celebrating City Day with activities that involved a lot of people in town, and also there was the Ukrainian soccer final the same day. As a rule, when such events take place, normally 2,000 to 3,000 Interior Ministry troops are brought into the city to maintain order.

It’s normally done without the President, and this is done every single year. The fact that 2,000 troops was sent here to Kyiv was just due to that.

But somebody started a rumour that it was the President’s instructions. You should know that all instructions from the President to the military forces should be in writing, and I have not taken any written decisions.

The case was the following: I was meeting with law enforcement officers and military people almost every day, and persuaded them to keep their distance from any political events.

My main goal was to use any kind of military resistance or any application of force. This is not the way to resolve the crisis, and there’s nothing to it. This was only political rumours and speculation.

MM: In the elections on Sept. 30, what question is Ukraine facing? Is it similar to 2004, West versus East, or is it democracy versus something else?

VY: I think the key issues will be around yesterday’s versus today’s politics…. In the essence of it, democratic values and the establishment of political order on democratic principles, this is the package that the democratic parties are going with.

MM: And what’s the other side offering, in your mind?

VY: The preservation of what exists, and what has been in the past. Untransparent markets and privatizations. The political control over the system of justice, and the prosecutor’s office. It’s also the politicization of the Central Elections Commission and the Constitutional Court. It’s the refusal of pro-Western policy.

MM: Do you, in this struggle, still see the hand of Moscow, the hand of the Kremlin, behind the Communists, the Socialists and the Party of Regions, as in 2004?

VY: I would say that the left forces, the left parties, are pretty much oriented to Moscow’s position. But in any case, this has already passed. Whether somebody wants to accept it or not, this is the old take.

Moscow also needs a predictable Ukraine, and Ukraine’s future is not now decided by Socialists and Communists.

Although, through activation of those forces you can break the process. But this has nothing to do with returning Ukraine back to what it was.

MM: Do you think Moscow wants to break the process now? Or are they more hands-off than in the past?

VY: I don’t exclude the fact that there are some political forces in Russia that want to keep the old political order in Ukraine…. But I emphasize that we are an independent state, a sovereign country. It is us who determine our domestic and foreign policies.
We respect their international role and traditions, but this is actually our politics…. I’m all for building good neighbourly relations with Russia, on the basis of equality and respect for the sovereignty of the state.

MM: Last week, our newspaper was one of those that met with President Putin in Moscow and he, among other things, threatened to target Europe with missiles in response to the American missile shield. Do you think these sort of comments should be taken seriously? Are they rhetoric? Are you worried about the new breach between Russia and the West?

VY: I think the President of Russia is not kidding. But I wouldn’t like to make any further comment than that. It’s beyond my competence.

I’d like to express my own position… The recent events, I think, show to everyone that we have quite a creaky security balance and this really triggers some concerns and could be really painful.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that the best response to all the challenges regarding defense and security policy can only be given through a collective system of defense. And it’s becoming more apparent that leaders of states have to pay more attention to this fact, particularly building the common system of collective defense.

MM: Just to be clear, are you speaking there of including Russia in this collective?

VY: Frankly speaking, I would not exclude it, for this is only about the entrance of a certain country.

I remember from history when the Soviet Union was applying to join the North Atlantic bloc. I think that any model that will have resistance behind it will trigger concerns. It will very hard to build any stability on such a basis.

MM: Do you agree with the missile shield currently proposed for Eastern Europe, based in Poland and the Czech Republic, or would you rather see a system based in a place that includes Ukraine in the shield?

VY: Our defense and security doctrine is formally determined in law. And a key aspect of this doctrine is to provide Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and the North Atlantic bloc.

If there’s one thing it emphasizes, it’s Ukraine’s intention to be integrated into the collective security system within the framework of the North Atlantic bloc.

MM: Are you worried about Russian objections to that? They, of course, view NATO as an anti-Russian alliance still.

VY: I’m sure that Ukraine is ready to give all the necessary responses to any of the questions that might arrive, and to emphasize that this is a policy that is not against somebody, this is not a policy that is determining any threat.

According to national legislation, this is the policy that is most suitable for the security and defense of this nation.

MM: Next year, of course, there are presidential elections in both Russia and Ukraine. I guess I should first ask whether or not you intend to run again, and secondly if you have any contacts with like-minded politicians in Russia, like Mikhail Kasyanov and Garry Kasparov?

VY: When speaking about the internal elections in Russia, both parliamentary and presidential, this is purely a domestic affair. It is the right of the people to choose which force they want to align their future with.

For us, as neighbours, what’s important is that [the elections] are performed on a democratic basis and in public. This is the main thing. To preserve people’s right to vote…

This process should go in a democratic way.

MM: I was here, or course, during the Orange Revolution, and just speaking with colleagues and friends of mine who were among your supporters in the streets at the time, there’s a certain amount of disillusionment three years on. I’m wondering if you understand the people who feel they were let down, and where you put the blame for what hasn’t gone right?

VY: Saying that Ukraine has not changed in the last two years is telling lies. Today we have the [fastest growth rate] in Europe. We didn’t have that before. As a whole we were in depression for 13 years.

Today the GDP growth is estimated at 8 per cent. The industrial growth is 13. Agriculture growth is 6.

For the past two years, Ukraine received $10-billion in [foreign direct investment]. More than the previous 15 years altogether. For the last two years, we’ve had our lowed unemployment rate ever.

The real incomes of the population have increased by 21 and 18 per cent respectively. Salary growth is estimated at around 34 per cent. Every year, we’re creating a million new [jobs], and not a single social strike has taken place in the past two years.

Ukrainian pensions are now higher than Russia, Belarus and Moldova. Three years ago it was a different case. We had the lowest salaries, the lowest pension out of all the [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries, except for Armenia and Uzbekistan.

Speaking about social and economic indicators, we have just immense success in two years. It should be mentioned that the reserves of the Central Bank have doubled and now are estimated at $23-billion. We have a stable currency and stable prices. We have one of the most dynamic European economies at the moment, which is developing a lot faster than our neighbours’, including Russia.

Speaking about the political agenda, there are still problems here. These problems are mainly related to the system of political power.

I never had a pro-presidential majority in parliament while I’ve been President. I work in a regime where the political majority is on the other side. When this majority determines the law enforcement institutions, the prosecutor’s office…

Among other issues, I can say that relations between democratic parties are very complicated as well. Uniting two political forces is not an easy task to do. When we were going to the parliament [elections] back in 2002, I had to make a joint bloc which contained 12 political parties. That makes keeping efficient dialogue very complex.

In the course of the last parliamentary elections, if no betrayals took place, like [Socialist leader Oleksandr] Moroz’s, it would have been the first time in the history of Ukraine when the majority in parliament was [controlled] by democratic parties.

It’s necessary to pay considerable attention to the dialogue of democratic forces, which is the biggest political challenge.

I believe the biggest disappointment is related to this very fact. The last election to parliament was not won by the Party of Regions, it was lost by the democratic forces, because of their internal relations.

The President is not always able to settle these issues. We’re speaking of inter-party cooperation, which has been quite complex…

It’s not an easy task.

MM: I have one last, very personal, question for you. One of my friends, again a supporter of yours, says that one of the big signs for him that things haven’t gone as he’d hoped, was that no one has been charged in your poisoning. Do you expect that will happen any time soon?

VY: This is one of the problems, in the context of the political fight between the past and the future.

Ukraine is just about to build an unpoliticized and independent prosecutor’s office…

It has [caused] everyday fighting and disputes, but it is necessary to make the prosecutor-general’s office distant from power and political orders.

Different very loud cases are being seized because of somebody’s wish. Unfortunately, this is the reality Ukraine has faced over the last 10-15 years.

In this very case, I can tell you the following.

There is certain progress in this case. The investigators have received sufficient data on how this poison works, and what’s the technology of its application. Where the poison could be produced, in which lab, and how it could be delivered to Ukraine.”

All the chain is related to when the meals were put on the table, and the people who have done it are already determined.

Right now there is an international search for those people. In my opinion, this case is promising.

Interview with President Yushchenko

I interviewed Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko this afternoon about his country's political crisis and the coming elections, as well as his intention to bring Ukraine into NATO and his country's relations with Russia. We met at the Presidential Administration building in Kyiv.

The headlines will be in tomorrow's The Globe and Mail, and I hope to eventually post the full transcript of our discussion here.

Missile shield for Azerbaijan?

The latest from the G-8 summit is that Vladimir Putin is offering a "compromise" proposal that would see the American missile shield - which Washington plans to base in Poland and the Czech Republic - replaced by a joint NATO-Russian effort that would be established in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.

It's a clever play by Putin. If, as the Bush Administration has always claimed, the shield is intended to defend Europe against missiles from rogue states like Iran, why not have the radar station and interceptors stationed in Azerbaijan, right next to the Iranian border? If the Bushies say no, they'll make it look like the Kremlin was right to be concerned, and that the system is an anti-Russian measure that could eventually be expanded to take away part or all of Moscow's strategic deterrent capability.

Having threatened to point Russian missiles at Europe if the current missile shield plan is implemented, Putin has made it very difficult for the U.S. to say no to what sounds like a very reasonable proposal. And by volunteering Azerbaijan, he's picked a country where Russia retains wide influence, rather than the staunchly pro-Western Poland and Czech Republic.

National Security Adviser Steve Hadley is the only American official to respond so far, and he's called Putin's suggestion an "interesting proposal."

He might have added that Vladimir Vladimirovich is a hell of a poker player.

A frosty gathering in Heiligendamm

It certainly looks like this year's G-8 summit will feature far less of the usual backslapping camraderie and a lot more blunt, combative talk.

Vladimir Putin got the ball rolling in a hawkish interview he gave this weekend to my colleague Doug Saunders and other Western reporters. There are snippets available here on The Globe and Mail website ahead of the publication of the full interview tomorrow.

In the preview, Putin threatens to aim his country's missiles at new targets in Europe if the U.S. pushes ahead with its plans to establish a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, and according to our military experts will be threatening us, we will have to respond," he said over dinner with oen correspondent from each of the other seven G-8 countries ahead of the summit this week in Germany. "What kind of steps are we going to take in response? Of course, we are going to get new targets in Europe."

That doesn't sound like a "partner for peace" talking.

I've written before about my concerns about the missile shield plan. While a missile shield that covers all of Europe - including Russia - from the threat of sudden attack by a rogue actor is desirable in the long run, there's no need to do this now, in this way. It's foolish to secure yourself against the possibility of Iran lobbing a single missile Europe's way (something not even Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has threatened to do), only to revive the now-dormant threat of hundreds Russian missiles annihilating half of the continent.

That said, I imagine the other G-8 leaders are going to read these remarks with new concern, and Putin is certain to get a chilly reception when he arrives in Heiligendamm on Wednesday for the summit. The old question of why Russia - given that it meets none of the criteria for membership in the club - is in the G-8 at all is sure to come up as well.

The New Cold War

What a day. Spies and double agents. New ballistic missile tests. A threatening speech by the Russian President. More political turmoil in Ukraine. Gunfights in a breakaway region of Georgia. The gloves, it seems, are truly off between the Kremlin and the West.

Take today's allegations by Andrei Lugovoi that Alexander Litvinenko was a British agent who tried to recruit him, and that either the British secret service or exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky was behind Litvinenko's murder-by-polonium. Whatever the truth of his charges, he couldn't have made them at the Interfax press centre without approval from very, very high up in the Kremlin. It tells you that relations between London and Moscow have now officially reached the abysmal stage.

The same goes for Washington. A few hours after Lugovoi finished his jaw-dropping press conference, Vladimir Putin held one of his own to announce that American actions - specifically moves to establish an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe - had forced Russia to begin a "new round of the arms race" in order "to maintain the strategic balance in the world." Putin's remarks came two days after Russia tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying up to 10 warheads (thereby easily overwhelming the limited defenses the U.S. wants to establish in Poland and the Czech Republic). It suddenly feels very 1980 around here.

In this context, the sudden backtracking by Kremlin ally Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine (who is footdragging on promises to pass legislation for a fall election there), as well as the shelling of Georgian positions this week by Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia, look like part of a broader message from Moscow.

Don't back us into a corner, the Kremlin is bearishly saying. If you do, we can cause no end of trouble.

An ominous growl from Moscow

Vladimir Putin's last (he promises) state-of-the-union speech was a disturbingly hawkish one, announcing that Moscow would suspend its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe as a response to the U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

Putin effectively announced that Russia was joining a new arms race, and declared the old fears about a nuclear confrontation may no longer be a thing of the past. If the missile shield goes ahead, he said today, "the threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times."

Pulling out of the 1990 treaty is a largely symbolic gesture since it's 1999 update was never ratified by NATO countries because of Russia's failure to comply with conditions that it pull its soldiers out of Georgia and Moldova. Nonetheless, it's a strong declaration of how far relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated under Putin.

The treaty regulates the number of tanks, aircraft and artillery pieces each side can deploy in Europe, and its signing 17 years ago was one of the biggest signs that the (first) Cold War was coming to an end.

As I noted in a previous post, the expansion of NATO and particularly the deployment of the missile shield are viewed in as hostile encirclement by the Kremlin. "This is not just a defence system, this is part of the US nuclear weapons system," Putin said today.

It will be interesting to see the American response. To date, Condoleeza Rice has ridiculed the Russian suggestion that the the shield poses any kind of risk to Moscow. She points out, correctly, that Russia has thousands of warheads that would overwhelm the small system that the U.S. wants to set up in Poland and the Czech Republic.

This has all the makings of the most serious crisis in U.S.-Russian relations since the fall of the USSR.

Another interesting and ominous note in Putin's address yesterday: while he promised that next year's address will be delivered by another head-of-state - suggesting that he still intends not to break the constitution and run for a third term in office - he added that "it is premature for me to declare a political will."

The last remark drew the loudest applause of the day.

See, I'm not making this "New Cold War" stuff up...

...or if I am, it's in cahoots with The Guardian.

I've always felt the United States's insistence on an anti-ballistic missile shield to be unwise, especially one that covers Russia's neighbours but doesn't include Russia itself. For all the talk about the need to defend against Iran, it needlessly antagonizes the Kremlin, and forces them to respond.

I rarely find myself nodding in agreement when Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov speaks (although he's a nice man), but I did this time: "It brings tremendous change to the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world's strategic stability," he said in his interview with The Guardian. "We feel ourselves deceived. Potentially we will have to create alternatives to this."