In a highly anticipated interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin commenced with an extensive discussion of historical and philosophical narratives, in which he examined Russia’s thousand-year history. He articulated an ancient Russian geopolitical vision which portrays the country as vulnerable from the west. Putin traced back to when Khan Batu invaded the empire, severing its western territories including Kiev. According to Putin, this resulted in the formation of a Moscow-centered empire while the separated regions gravitated towards a Western European power center, which at the time was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.