Russia not striving for Soviet-like superpower status: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that the country does not want to be a superpower like the erstwhile Soviet Union as it does not seek to impose influence on other states.

"We are not looking for this status because this notion is loaded with certain elements connected to imposing the influence on other states and whole regions. We do not want to go back to the state that the Soviet Union was in when it was imposing the lifestyle, political system and the rest on its neighbours, including the Eastern European countries," the Russian President said during a televised question-and-answer session.

"This is counterproductive, this is too costly and does not have any historical prospects," he added.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) spanned across Eurasia and consisted of 15 SSRs in its final years, according to Britannica. It collapsed in 1991, leading to the SSRs gaining self-governing independence.