As one of Russia’s leading commentators, Dmitri Trenin, noted, Putin was driving home the reality of multipolarity: “Until recently, Russia saw itself as a Pluto in the Western solar system, very far from the center but still fundamentally part of it. Now it has left that orbit entirely: Russia’s leaders have given up on becoming part of the West and have started creating their own Moscow-centered system.” Russia was establishing itself as a “major outside player that is neither an eternal foe nor an automatic friend.”
