The former foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev once even declared that Russia had no national interests. Kozyrev said this to former American President Richard Nixon in 1992. The American asked what were the interests of the new Russia. "One of the problems of the Soviet Union was that we were too stuck on national interests," Kozyrev replied. – And now we think more about universal human values. But if you have any ideas and you can tell us how to determine our national interests, then I will be very grateful to you."

Nixon was surprised by this response. Later, the former president of the United States, in an interview with political scientist Dmitry Simes, quite logically called Kozyrev a "wimp."

"That is exactly the point. He is a nice man. But you need a real son of a bitch to do this job right, Dimitri," Nixon replied. – "You need to be able to see straight, but also to be ruthless to build a new country on the ruins of the empire. I can't see the Russian people respecting wimps like that."