In the Euro-Atlantic Community, Russia is seen as the direct successor to the Soviet Union, sharing similarities in the field of international diplomacy and smart power practices in the near abroad (blijnéié zaroubiéjé – ближнее зарубежье).
On the one hand, Moscow is important to the West in areas such as the fight against terrorism, but on the other hand, it is seen as an autocratic regime that tries to weaken democracy and liberalism. This duality has led to anti-Russian sentiment and apprehension about what Russia is and where it belongs to - Europe or Asia - after the collapse of the USSR until nowadays.
In the late 1990s, the United States and most European countries came to the conclusion that the Russian Federation is neither European nor Asian, it remains a military superpower with macroeconomic weaknesses and is inconsistent in its geopolitical alliances. The European Union and the United States have failed to build mutual trust with Moscow, as highlighted by the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000 and lack of diplomatic and military cooperation during the Syrian civil war. The concept of 'normal power' promoted by Yevgeny Primakov gradually gave way to the idea of the necessary return of a Greater Russia to protect its national interests against the West.