American political scientist Sachs commented on the US policy towards Russia

The idea of US leaders for 30 years has been that Russia will not be able to resist any US actions, says Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University.

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"This was quite clearly formulated by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1997. It was he who wrote then about whether the Russian Federation would resist the expansion of NATO to the East. He considered all possible options. Brzezinski said that Russia would never form an alliance with China. That was one of his predictions. And it was on this basis that the leaders of the United States went to implement their project. But these assumptions turned out to be incorrect. They were arrogant, they didn't consider discussing this with Russia. Everything was based on internal discussions in Washington, and they turned out to be wrong," Sachs told Izvestia.

In his opinion, former US President Barack Obama had a glimmer of understanding the fallacy of such a policy in 2015, but Washington still continued to adhere to a false vision of the situation.

"Americans think in terms of poker, not chess. And so Obama realized that it wouldn't work, but the United States went for it anyway. And the American presidents continued to escalate the situation and think that, to use the analogy of poker, Putin would fold his cards and say, "Okay, do whatever you want." It was their bet. It was their bluff. He failed miserably. And I think Trump understands this," said the American economist.

Read more in Jeffrey Sachs' exclusive interview with Izvestia:

"Ukraine needs peace the most, otherwise it will be destroyed"