I think they suffered from a very deep frustration, resentment, and very deep complex of defeat in the Cold War. The practical action of Moscow on the international scene is driven again and again, not by national interests, not by some cynical calculation, but rather by resentment against the West and, first of all, against the United States, which won the Cold War. Putin is not a creator of this new, tough, anti-Western tendency in Russian policies. But certainly his own background, his biography and his mentality mark very strongly his vision of the world. He gives Russia's reaction to the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk as one example of Russia's approach to the outside world.
Many Russian officials insist the vessel sank after colliding with a foreign vessel.
I think, if they repeat this lie over and over again, they begin to believe it themselves, because it's too difficult to accept the truth. And to perceive the world as confrontation between the United States and Russia is psychologically more comfortable than the reality of our economy and our position in the world. Russian political analyst Andrey Kortunov says aside from the economics of it all, President Putin made foreign policy a key part of his first year in office for domestic reasons. He says a focus on foreign policy is a risk-free way for President Putin to remain popular among Russian citizens. It's a rather cheap and not very binding field.