Putin Says Naively Believed There Would Be No Confrontation Between West, Russia

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that in the early 2000s, he had a naive idea that the world has changed, there is no ideological confrontation, and no grounds for conflict between the West and Russia.

"I had a naive idea that the whole world and especially the so-called, now I say with absolute conviction, the so-called civilized [world] understands what happened to Russia, that it has become a completely different country, that there is no ideological confrontation anymore, which means there is no basis for confrontation," Putin said.

He added that he saw negative actions in the policies of Western countries towards Russia, in particular, support for separatism and terrorism on Russia’s territory, but believed that this was "simply the inertia of thinking and action."

"But the reality is, later I became 100% convinced of this, that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they [in the West] thought that they had to be patient – and would collapse Russia too," Putin said.

The West wanted to destroy Russia, dividing it into parts, subjugate it and use its resources, "as US politician Brzezinski suggested," the Russian leader said.