The US is interested in Russia with a strong government, says former Secretary of Defense Gates
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The United States is interested in maintaining the unity of Russia and a strong government in Moscow that would continue to control the state’s nuclear arsenal, noted Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
“The last thing we need is a fragmentation of Russia with an unclear fate for all these nuclear weapons,” the former defense minister told The Washington Post.
Gates, who began his career as a CIA Sovietologist analyst, has not expressed hope for a change in Russian leadership, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s successor is likely to be an even bigger “hawk” rather than someone willing to settle or arrange negotiations with Ukraine.
According to him, the Ukrainians can win back the territories lost since the start of Russia’s special military operation, but he called the return of Crimea “a separate and more complex problem”, a “real red line” for Putin.
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