Henry Kissinger warns West to not alienate Russia

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has urged the United States to treat Russia as a great power.

In an interview with The National Interest, published this week, the 92-year-old former statesman said "breaking Russia has become an objective [for US officials]. The long-range purpose should be to integrate it. If we treat Russia seriously as a great people, we need at an early stage to determine whether their concerns can be reconciled with our necessities."

The United States and the European Union have condemned pro-Russian separatist forces fighting in eastern Ukraine. The United Nations estimates that over 6,700 people have been killed.

In the interview, Kissinger accused the West of failing to recognize the historical context that instigated the confrontation.

"The relationship between Ukraine and Russia will always have a special character in the Russian mind," Kissinger said. "It can never be limited to a relationship of two traditional sovereign states, not from the Russian point of view, maybe not even from Ukraine's. So what happens in Ukraine cannot be put into a simple formula of applying principles that worked in Western Europe."

Meanwhile, Ukaine's ambassador to Israel, Hennadii Nadolenko, announced plans for President Petro Poroshenko to visit Jerusalem.

"We expect in the near future a visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Kiev, and President Petro Poroshenko to Jerusalem. [This will] further deepen cooperation between the two countries in all spheres of mutual interest," Nadolenko wrote in an opinion piece in a Russian-Israeli newspaper.

Israel has protested the planned sale of advanced Russian S-300 air defense missiles to Iran. Netanyahu has also vehemently opposed the Iran nuclear deal, while Russia was a key player in crafting it.