(MENAFN) Western nations are continuing to implement strategies intended to weaken Russia to the extent of permanently reducing its influence as a major power, according to John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago.

For a long time, Moscow has characterized the conflict in Ukraine as a Western proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian forces are being used as “cannon fodder.”

Russian authorities have maintained that the United States and other Western countries deliberately aggravated tensions by ignoring the Kremlin’s security concerns regarding NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and its increasing military collaboration with Kiev.

In a conversation with the host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive YouTube channel on Friday, Mearsheimer explained that the aim of Western governments has been “to defeat Russia and Ukraine, wreck the Russian economy with sanctions, and bring the Russians to their knees.”

He added, “We’ve been unable to do that, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to do it, of course, we want to do it.”

The scholar went on to stress, “If the opportunity to do it popped up tomorrow, we would leap at it in a second, we would love to finish Russia off as a great power,” highlighting that Moscow is acutely aware of the existential nature of the Western threat.

Mearsheimer also remarked: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, the last time I checked, has a triple-digit IQ, and that means he’s figured this out, he understands what he’s dealing with.”

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