The United States and its allies wasted an opportunity to weaken Russia by completely embracing it in the 1990s, according to Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu. 

In a Rossiya-24 interview, which aired on Tuesday, the former Defense Minister remembered how then-President Boris Yeltsin informed his US counterpart, Bill Clinton, in 1994 that "Russia has to be the first country to join NATO."

Shoigu stated that had Russia been fast-tracked into the bloc, the country would have lost its sovereignty, and "the resources and natural deposits that our country has would have been largely redistributed and snatched."

Russia was facing financial trouble in the mid-1990s and was dependent on foreign help, so it would have gladly joined the Western fold if offered, the official claimed. 

Shoigu stated that at the time, he was following the arrival of foreign subsidy tranches in order to hurry to the government and get cash to pay salaries to personnel at the Emergencies Ministry, which he commanded.

"They’ve made a mistake. They should have gotten us into the EU as soon as possible. And we would be like the EU members: just a command from across the ocean, we would be folding our paws and getting ready to jump through a hoop."

Shoigu noted a controversy involving French helicopter ships of the Mistral class, which Russia bought for its Navy in 2011. The arrangement was called off following the 2014 color revolution in Kiev, which was intended to punish Moscow for adopting separatist Crimea as a new Russian province.

According to Shoigu, Washington used the magnitude of a pending punishment on a French bank to put pressure on Paris to terminate the arrangement with Russia. He was likely alluding to the Paris-listed BNP Paribas, which agreed in June 2014 to enter a guilty plea with the Americans in a case of sanctions evasion and pay a $9 billion penalty to conclude the matter.

French officials reported that the cancelling of the agreement and selling the ships to Egypt resulted in a net loss of $450 million.

Medvedev: Sanctions on Russia are forever or will end with US collapse

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev criticized both American presidential candidates for their inability or unwillingness to lift sanctions on Russia, saying that such decisions will edge the United States closer to civil war. 

In a critic posted on his Telegram channel, Medvedev called out Republican candidate, Donald Trump, for posing as an anti-establishment candidate and called Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, "plain stupid".

Medvedev focused his remarks on the possibility of sanctions on Russia being lifted, ultimately concluding that such a move is improbable, regardless of whether Trump or Harris secures victory.

"Out of spite for the current administration, Donald Trump has threatened to lift sanctions against Russia. But will he really do it if elected? No, of course not," Medvedev said.

"For all his apparent bravado as an 'outsider', Trump is ultimately an establishment insider," the deputy head of the Russian Security Council explained.

Medvedev said that Trump is an "eccentric narcissist", however, he believes that the former President is a "pragmatist".

He highlighted that Trump understands that sanctions are detrimental to the dollar's "dominance in the world."

"However, that's insufficient reason to stage a revolution in the United States and go against the anti-Russian line of the notorious Deep State, which is much stronger than any Trump," Medvedev observed.

The Russian official's statement is not too far-fetched from American political discourse, as nearly four out of 10 American voters believe that a civil war in the US is likely within the next five years.