Leadership Quote by Boris Yeltsin

A velvet-gloved assertion of indispensability, Yeltsin’s line sells cooperation while quietly rewriting the seating chart. “Prepared to work with others” sounds like a post-Cold War reset, but the grammar keeps Russia in the driver’s seat: not joining a project so much as allowing one to proceed with it. The real pressure point comes next. “Cannot be considered without taking Russia into account” is less invitation than veto. Europe may discuss stability and security, Yeltsin implies, but any architecture built over Russia’s head is illegitimate by definition.

The timing matters. In the 1990s, Russia was economically battered, politically volatile, and watching NATO and the EU expand eastward into what Moscow still felt as a historical buffer zone. Yeltsin needed Western capital and recognition, yet he also had to manage domestic humiliation narratives: the fear that Russia had “lost” Europe and would be treated as a defeated power. This phrasing squares that circle. It reassures Western audiences with the language of partnership while signaling at home that Russia remains a great power whose consent is required.

Rhetorically, the sentence turns geography into destiny. Europe’s “stability and security” are framed as a single system that naturally includes Russia, collapsing the distinction between European integration and Russian influence. It’s also a warning about what happens when you don’t “take Russia into account”: instability becomes the implied cost of exclusion. In one smooth move, Yeltsin converts vulnerability into leverage.