MOSCOW: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday that Washington grew “arrogant and self-confident” after the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the expansion of the NATO military alliance.

In recent years President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly insistent that NATO is encroaching close to Russia’s borders, and Moscow last week demanded “legal guarantees” that the US-led alliance will halt its eastward expansion.

“How can one count on equal relations with the United States and the West in such a position?” Gorbachev told state news agency RIA Novosti on the eve of the anniversary of his resignation as the leader of the USSR.