Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has blasted the West for trying to impose its rules-based order on the global community to achieve its own interests at the expense of others, saying such moves will fail.
“To attain these goals, they (West) try to replace international law with a “rules-based order,” whatever that means. It is not clear what rules these are and who invented them. It is just rubbish, but they are trying to plant this idea in the minds of millions of people. “You must live according to the rules.” What rules?’” Putin charged.
“And actually, if I may, our Western “colleagues,” especially those from the United States, don’t just arbitrarily set these rules, they teach others how to follow them, and how others should behave overall. All of this is done and expressed in a blatantly ill-mannered and pushy way. This is another manifestation of colonial mentality. All the time we hear, “you must,” “you are obligated,” “we are seriously warning you,’” he added.
“Who are you to do that? What right do you have to warn others? This is just amazing. Maybe those who say all this should get rid of their arrogance and stop behaving in such a way towards the global community that perfectly knows its objectives and interests, and should drop this colonial-era thinking? I want to tell them sometimes: wake up, this era has long gone and will never return,” Putin emphasised.
“Everyone realises that in an international system where arbitrariness reigns, where all decision-making is up to those who think they are exceptional, sinless and right, any country can be attacked simply because it is disliked by a hegemon, who has lost any sense of proportion – and I would add, any sense of reality.”
Putin took part in the plenary session of the 20th anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.
The platform brings together political leaders and researchers, experts and civil society activists from many countries around the world.
The development comes as Putin is under intense criticism by western media and the global elite for waging war against Ukraine.
The war has left a trail of destruction of property and loss of tens of thousands of precious lives.
Donbas conflict
Putin sought to persuade the audience at the conference that the Ukraine conflict was actually started by the regime in Kiev.
“This war, the one that the regime sitting in Kiev started with the vigorous and direct support from the West, has been going on for more than nine years, and Russia’s special military operation is aimed at stopping it,” said Putin.
“They have been bombing the place for nine years, shooting and using tanks. That was a war, a real war unleashed against Donbass. And no one counted the dead children in Donbass. No one cried for the dead in other countries, especially in the West,” he added.
The West accuses Russia of helping separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine before the secession from the war-torn country.
Putin said the United States and its satellites have taken a steady course towards hegemony in military affairs, politics, the economy, culture and even morals and values.
“Since the very beginning, it has been clear to us that attempts to establish a monopoly were doomed to fail. The world is too complicated and diverse to be subjected to one system, even if it is backed by the enormous power of the West accumulated over centuries of its colonial policy,” he added.
“Your colleagues as well – many of them are absent today, but they do not deny that to a significant degree, the prosperity of the West has been achieved by robbing colonies for several centuries. This is a fact. Essentially, this level of development has been achieved by robbing the entire planet,” said the Russian leader.
He said lasting peace will only be possible when everyone feels safe and secure, understands that their opinions are respected, and that there is a balance in the world where no one can unilaterally force or compel others to live or behave as a hegemon pleases even when it contradicts the sovereignty, genuine interests, traditions, or customs of peoples and countries.
In such an arrangement, Putin argued, the very concept of sovereignty is simply denied and, sorry, is thrown in the garbage.
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