Recent discussions about Russian foreign policy have generally concentrated on its shift to the right. Along with numerous Western observers, who interpret Russian international behavior as a single-player activity, the Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev has himself attempted to portray his policy in terms of realist theory. Answering numerous accusations on “embracing some policies that [he] once spoke out against” (Rafaei et al., 1994), Kozyrev paints an explicit picture of a strategic response by his ministry to objective world conditions. However, analysis shows that world conditions played a very small role in shaping Russian foreign policy.