Putin on Russia and Europe

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#9
BBC Monitoring
Putin sets out vision for Russia and Europe
Source: Russian Public TV (ORT), Moscow, in Russian 0900 gmt 5 Dec 01

[Presenter] On the eve of his official visit to Greece, which starts on 6 December, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an interview to Greek TV. The conversation lasted about 40 minutes, and featured a wide variety of questions on Russia-Greek relations, dialogue with the USA, the extension of NATO, and Russia's interaction with this organization. The President also spoke of Russia's place in contemporary Europe.

[Putin] One of the prominent figures of our history, when asked whether Russia was walking away from Europe, replied no. Russia is concentrating its energies. It is not angry, it is not walking away, it is concentrating its energies.

So after the fall of such a world power as the Soviet Union, our country was faced with the problems of transition, from a command economy, from a totalitarian regime to a market economy, and to democracy. After we went through, or are still going through, though, I hope now we are on the verge of emerging from it, that difficult period, Russia is now becoming once more a country which is not indifferent to what is going on in this or that part of the world.

I cannot imagine a Russia, which was not interested, and did not exert an influence on these processes. You just have to look at its territory. Russia is both in Europe and in Asia, both in the north and the south. The very fact of its presence in these parts of the world means that it is a European power, and an Asian power, a southern and a northern power.

All this has a practical significance for the solution of specific tasks. With regard to the Balkans, both Russia and Greece are connected to this part of the world by centuries of history, and many strands, economic and spiritual strands, as well as others different in character. It is difficult to conceive of the Balkans without cooperation with Russia.

I have the impression that the most important thing in the Balkans today is not to allow a redrawing of borders. Because if overlook this matter, or we do not see or give the impression that we didn't understand what was going on there, and if we close our eyes to the redrawing of borders in Europe, this could have very serious consequences for Europe as a whole.

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