BESLAN /North Ossetia/, August 20. /TASS/. Russia’s enemies are guided purely by their self-interest, they are strangers to morality and ethics, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the meeting with mothers of Beslan, pointing out the foreign support to the 2004 terror attack.

"Our enemy is not like us, although it also has a head and arms," Putin said. "These people have neither morality, nor ethics, only their interests are perpetual," the head of state said, referring to the famous formula of British diplomacy regarding the absence of perpetual friends or enemies. "It would seem we known that already, it’s not secret. But it’s impossible to get used to."

"We observe it now, as the reality of life unfolds. If viewed from aside, it is clear what they do," the head of state said.

The quote "we have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies, our interests are eternal and perpetual" belongs to Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston, and was said at the Parliament in 1848. London and other countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal culture - the United States in particular - still largely adhere to this formula: in the past few centuries, the UK and the US have repeatedly switched coalitions and allies depending on their own profit at the moment.