Russia committed an act of aggression in Ukraine, and that's the first time since 1945 a European country has seized the territory of another European country. That's serious business. They started a war with their neighbor. Their troops as well as the separatists funded and controlled by Russia are killing people just about every day.

America's grand strategy did not come from nowhere. It followed from our deeper conception of ourselves, and our American identity. Who are we, Americans? What is our nation? We are not an ethnostate with identity rooted in shared blood. The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox.

The Russian myth that they broadcast to the world, and have their various surrogates in the West repeat, is that somehow the West took advantage of them, that we were mean to them. That writes out of history everything Strobe Talbott and Bill Clinton tried to do with Boris Yeltsin. Strobe Talbott leaned forward doing everything he could to help the Russians, and frankly, I have little patience for the notion that we gave them nothing but bad advice.

Nothing can be taken for granted and this great achievement is now under assault by Russia. But what we did in my time is no less honorable. It is for the present generation to defend.

We intend to leave it without further discussion. We respect this request by the government of Uzbekistan

America's sanctions policy remains intact, and it will remain intact until it changes, if it does, and I'm not sure it will.

[Donald Trump administration] didn`t ask me to stay and 40 years seemed like enough.