Interfax: Russian security chief says relations with USA resemble cold war

(Interfax – Moscow, October 14, 2014) The USA was involved in the collapse of the Soviet Union and tried to destroy Russia; Washington’s current attitude to Moscow resembles a cold war, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev has said.

“President Barack Obama’s new administration started sending signals about the need to resume a mutually beneficial dialogue with Russia on a range of issues. However, it soon became clear that Washington did not intend to engage in proper cooperation. It confined itself to statements about friendliness and invented several negotiating processes, the usefulness of which for Russia proved to be almost zero in the end. Some time later, even these noncommittal positive dialogues stopped, and the USA’s attitude to our country again started resembling the times of the cold war,” Patrushev said in an interview which will be published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on Wednesday [15 October].

“The coup in Kiev was carried out, with the USA’s obvious support, following a classical scheme tested in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. But never before did such a scheme affect Russia’s interests so deeply,” the secretary of the Security Council said.

“Provoking Russia to take retaliatory steps, the Americans are pursuing the same goals as in the 80s of the 20th century in relation to the USSR. As before, they are trying to detect our country’s weak spots. Simultaneously, they are resolving the problem of neutralizing European economic competitors which, according to Washington, have come too close to Moscow,” Patrushev said.

According to Patrushev, the CIA, which took part in the collapse of the Soviet Union, identified the weakest link – the USSR budget’s highest dependence on energy exports.

Patrushev said that the bankruptcy of the Soviet state had been triggered by a decline in world oil prices. “This was achieved in the mid-80s, when as a result of collusion between the USA and the rulers of several oil-producing countries, the market saw an artificial surplus of raw materials, and oil prices dropped by almost four times,” Patrushev said.

According to him, the USA also had plans to extend its sphere of influence in the regions of the Black Sea, Caucasus and Caspian Sea, but Russia remained an obstacle to its plans. “American strategists saw a solution to this difficulty in a final collapse of the system of government and subsequent dismemberment of our country. The North Caucasus was considered to be the first region to secede from Russia. Particular importance was attached to Chechnya, which declared its independence and effectively fell was under the control of the West for some time. Extremists and their supporters in Russia were supported by special services in the UK, USA, as well as their allies in Europe and the Islamic world,” Patrushev said.