American analysts following Russia and the former Soviet Union repeatedly fail to understand the mentality of people living in the world’s largest country, one of Moscow’s leading senators has raged as experts weigh in on events happening along the border with Ukraine.
Taking to Telegram on Thursday, Alexey Pushkov poured scorn on a statement put forward by Michael McFaul, a well-known “Russia watcher” and Stanford professor who previously served as Washington’s ambassador to Russia during President Barack Obama’s era.
McFaul’s tweet read that “Ukrainian democracy today, not Ukrainian membership in NATO in some distant future, is the real threat to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.” Similar remarks have been made by the notoriously anti-Russian academic in recent weeks.
The exchange comes as Moscow aims to seek guarantees from NATO that Ukraine’s long-term ambitions to join the US-led military bloc will not be granted.