Russia is facing the same thing that has caused it to collapse twice in a century - Bildt

RIGA - Not being able to modernize the country, Russia has already collapsed twice in the course of a century, and the same awaits the Russia led by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, co-chairman of the European Council for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, expressed in an interview with LETA.

He expressed his belief that Putin will not rule for long, because the regime's problems are increasing and at some point they will become too heavy for him and his regime.

"We should not forget that Russia is one of the countries that has already collapsed twice in a century. It is again facing the same reasons - its inability to modernize the country. The tsarist empire failed to modernize and collapsed, the same happened with the Soviet Union. The same fate at some point also awaits Putin's regime," said Bildt in an interview on the sidelines of the Riga Conference.

He emphasized that at that moment the West must to be ready to cooperate with those with whom it will be possible in Russia. That is why the West should also help those people who cannot stay in Moscow at the moment and are going to other countries. "Not because they want to live in Sweden or Latvia, but because they want to be here when it will be possible to return to Russia," said the co-chairman of the European Foreign Affairs Council.

Bildt emphasized that Russia is a society that has historically been torn between what was then the West and the East. "This is the same old dispute from the 19th century, and it has never really been resolved. The historical contradictions between the Catholic and Lutheran West and the Orthodox East are still felt. It takes a lot of time for such issues to disappear. But Russia has to do it herself if she wants to to fit into the modern world - that's exactly what an open society means," said the Swedish international relations veteran.

Although the West tried for a long time to help Russia become a democratic country that fully integrates into the family of the modern world, Bildt does not assess Russia's situation as a failure of Western policy, but rather as a failure of Russia itself.

"Yes, we tried to help modernize Russia, and we tried this for quite a long time. We did what needed to be done. And Russia developed quite hopefully, there is no doubt about it - they were moving in the right direction, with all the complications and problems that followed. But then they turned to another direction. And that was Russia's own failure," he pointed out.