Russian President Vladimir Putin has disagreed with U.S. President Barack Obama's statement that Russia is a regional power, and also said that he doesn't see the U.S. as a unique nation.
“That is his [Obama's] opinion, just as I know his opinion that the American nation, the United States, is exceptional. I can't agree with either of these opinions,” Putin said, according to the transcript of the second part of his interview with German newspaper Bild, published on the Kremlin's website Tuesday.
?€?I think the attempt to speculate about other countries in a disrespectful manner is the incorrect way to prove one's exceptionalism,?€? he said.
Obama described Russia as a regional power in March 2014 several days after a referendum was held in Crimea, which resulted in the peninsula becoming part of the Russian Federation.
?€?Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness,?€? Obama said, according to Reuters.