By Steve Rosenberg BBC News, Moscow
October 5, 2016
They used to say that all roads lead to Rome. But,
today, it seems that all roads lead to Russia. Or to its president: Vladimir
Putin. Moscow is a key participant in the Syrian war and in the conflict in
eastern Ukraine. Russian hackers have been accused of breaking into US servers;
the Russian state has been accused of trying to influence the outcome of the US
presidential election and of attempting to divide and weaken the European
Union. And yet when Vladimir Putin came to power 16 years ago, he appeared
ready for a close friendship with the West. The US President Bill Clinton described him as
"smart" and a man with "enormous potential".
But compliments have given way to
confrontation, with a list of differences as long as the Russian winter: Syria,
Ukraine, Nato enlargement, missile defence. Western governments are
disillusioned with an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin leader. And he no
longer trusts them.
'Direct military confrontation'
"There's a real feeling now
that America is out to prove it is the only superpower," believes veteran
broadcaster Vladimir Pozner. "That
if Russia does not fall into step the way the US wants it to it's going to have
to pay a very high price for that. "The continued expansion of Nato is
seen by the Russian leadership, perhaps incorrectly, is seen as being a real
threat. You're pushing us, so we're pushing you right back. And we will do whatever we can to
make it as unpleasant for you as you've made it for us. "There is a danger
of real confrontation, perhaps leading to some kind of military engagement and
war."
This week the popular Russian
tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets suggested that the Syrian conflict could spark a
"direct military confrontation between Russia and America" - on a par
with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It warned of a Third World War.
"We had bad relations during
the Cold War," says Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International
Affairs Council, "but during the Cold War the relationship was more or
less stable, because we knew what to expect from each other, we knew the rules
of the game.
"Today we don't have
anything like that. So relations aren't stable. This is what makes this
relationship dangerous, arguably more dangerous than in the Cold War."
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