We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I can tell you quite honestly.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is... not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

We negotiated the construction of a gas pipeline system along the bottom of the Black Sea to Bulgaria. We signed certain treaties of a technical nature, contracts for laying the gas pipeline. And then Bulgaria created such conditions that the project's implementation became impossible, which was obviously against its own national interests. The former Bulgarian leadership was, in fact, aware of that and acknowledged it. But we trusted them when we were launching that project. We sustained losses amounting to millions, several million dollars. We would not want to get into such situations.

This, for instance, is what Egon Bahr said on June 26, 1990: "If we do not now undertake clear steps to prevent a division of Europe, this will lead to Russia's isolation."Bahr, a wise man, had a very concrete suggestion as to how this danger could be averted.

The Cold War is over. The world has become much more complicated.

There is no such thing as a former KGB man.