He’s utterly anti-American, deeply and sincerely. And it’s not about Obama or Bush or Clinton. It’s about his perception of America as a destructive power.

The most interesting foreign policy statement he made was published one week before his third term began in 2012. The article, “Russia and the Changing World,” was extremely interesting and substantial. He expressed everything that happened after. His core perception was that the United States is a country that misuses its might and creates even more chaos in the contemporary world, which is anyway very chaotic and unpredictable. Americans, by what they do, just worsen the situation.

The idea was not to challenge America, but to protect Russia. This is how he sees the world, with the United States as a really destructive and destabilizing power.

—Fyodor Lukyanov
“Hillary Is the Worst Option”: How Moscow Sees American Politics