Russia has no imperial ambitions, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying Thursday, amid worries in countries such as Ukraine after last month's conflict in Georgia.
"We do not have and will not have any of the imperial ambitions that people try to accuse us of," Putin told a meeting of officials and experts at a forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russian news agencies reported.
"Russia was the initiator of the destruction of the Soviet Union. If it wasn't for Russia, the USSR would still exist...we do not have any desire or basis for infringing the sovereignty of former Soviet republics," Putin said.
"However frightening the events in the Caucasus, everyone knows that this will not have any knock-on effects on Europe," said Putin, who remains a powerful figure in the Kremlin even after stepping down as Russia's president.
He rejected talk of a new Cold War between Moscow and the West.
"We don't have any ideological differences, no basis for a Cold War," he said. "On the contrary, we have a lot of common problems that we can only resolve together," including infectious diseases, terrorism and nonproliferation.