MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. Western adversaries have misjudged Russia’s potential in their attempt to inflict a military defeat on it, Sergey Naryshkin, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said in an interview with National Defense magazine.
"Determined to inflict a ‘military defeat’ on and then to ‘dismember’ Russia our Western opponents misjudged its potential," Naryshkin noted.
He pointed out that at the beginning of 2022 he had a chance to see some "absolutely fantastic forecasts predicting a 'collapse' of the Russian economy in a matter of months amid tightening sanctions."
"On this shaky basis, the US and its allies decided to intervene in the Ukrainian conflict," he continued. "The project of Russia's ‘international isolation’ also turned out to be a clear anachronism against the background of the emerging multipolar world. In fact, such an idea could only emerge in the heads of those who are completely blinded by their long-gone might and unable to see that the world has long been living by its own rules, not those imposed on it".
Naryshkin also noted that the West "has obviously forgotten that its own military strategists and commanders, who more than once in world history sustained crushing defeats in clashes with our country, advised one and all to give up trying to win a military victory over Russia."
"As a consequence, we are witnessing growing uncertainty about the likely outcomes of the current stage of the geopolitical confrontation. And, along with this, we see the strengthening of those forces on the world scene that, together with Russia, seek to localize the hotbed of tension and to prevent it from becoming the trigger of an all-out armed conflict," Naryshkin stated.