President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is not trying to bring back the Soviet Union, but that "nobody wants to believe" it.
"With Ukraine and other areas of the former U.S.S.R., I'm sure our Western partners aren't working in the interests of Ukraine, they are working to prevent the recreation of the U.S.S.R.," Putin said in World Order, a documentary broadcast on December 20.
"But nobody wants to believe us, nobody wants to believe that we're not trying to bring the Soviet Union back," he added.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the conflict in eastern Ukraine has plunged Moscow’s ties with the West to lows unseen since the Cold War.
More than 9,000 people have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops since April 2014.
