' Cold War ' returns to Russia-West relations ?

Although the former USSR has disintegrated since 1991, its successor state Russia is still a very powerful country with the largest landmass possessed by any single country on earth, strong and proud military tradition, nuclear weapons and veto power in the United Nations' Security Council. So, when its president Vladimir Putin delivered a hard-hitting speech against the United States' foreign policy in Germany's Munich recently, BBC speculated that the Cold War is back and the reactions in the Washington seem to be a little bit nervous but the US defense secretary Robert Gates has dismissed it. Gates' Russian opposite number Sergey Ivanov has reportedly also come to the defence of President Putin.

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