>>513815332
Man, we never wanted anyone to fear us. During Putin's 25 years in power, Russia has offered a huge number of concessions to the Western world in order to quell the Western Cold War mentality. This also includes an offer to join NATO (which the US rejected, as it did not want a weapons competitor in NATO), lucrative contracts and cheap prices for raw materials, and the opening of the market for investment and Western goods on very favorable terms. In the end, the West saw this as weakness, guided by the Cold War mentality, believing that Russia could only be talked to as a defeated rival in a lower hierarchy.
Putin himself ultimately said that all these events prove that the West's hostility towards Russia has no ideological basis (implying the poor relations between the West and the USSR), but is primarily geopolitical. The very existence of Russia is a source of irritation for the West.
