The world faces probably the most harmful decade since World Struggle II as Western elites scramble to forestall the inevitable crumbling of the worldwide dominance of the USA and its allies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated.
Putin accused the US on Thursday of inciting the battle in Ukraine, including the West was taking part in what he solid as a “harmful, bloody and soiled” geopolitical sport that’s sowing chaos the world over.
Finally, he stated, the West must speak to Russia and different main powers about the way forward for the world.
“The historic interval of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an finish,” Putin informed the Valdai Dialogue Membership, a convention of worldwide coverage consultants.
“We’re standing at a historic frontier: Forward might be probably the most harmful, unpredictable and, on the similar time, vital decade because the finish of World Struggle II.”
Russia didn’t take into account the West to be an enemy of Russia regardless of the present section of confrontation, he added. Moscow “had one message” for the “main nations of the West and NATO: let’s cease being enemies, let’s reside collectively”.
The White Home stated Putin’s remarks weren’t new and didn’t point out a change in his strategic targets, together with in Ukraine.
‘Prepared for negotiations’
Russia despatched troops into Ukraine on February 24, triggering the most important showdown with the West because the 1962 Cuban missile disaster within the depths of the Chilly Struggle when the Soviet Union and the US got here closest to nuclear warfare.
Tens of 1000’s of individuals have been killed whereas the West has imposed probably the most extreme sanctions in historical past on Russia, one of many world’s greatest suppliers of pure sources.
Putin stated Moscow was prepared for talks to finish the battle in Ukraine, however stated Kyiv was not ready to take a seat down on the negotiating desk.
“It’s not a query about us, we’re prepared for negotiations. However the leaders in Kyiv determined to not proceed negotiations with Russia,” he stated. “It is extremely straightforward to unravel this drawback if Washington provides a sign to Kyiv to vary its place and resolve the issue peacefully.”
There have been no peace talks between the 2 since makes an attempt at a negotiated settlement fell aside within the first weeks of the battle, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has explicitly dominated out a negotiated take care of Putin.
Requested a few potential nuclear escalation, Putin stated the hazard of nuclear weapons utilization would exist so long as nuclear arms do.
Moscow has no intention to make use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he stated. “We see no want for that. There isn’t any level in that neither political nor navy.”
‘Soiled sport’
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s overseas ministry spokeswoman, argued “the extra the US is drawn into supporting the Kyiv regime on the battlefield, the extra they threat upsetting a direct navy confrontation between the most important nuclear powers fraught with catastrophic penalties”.
Quoting a 1978 Harvard lecture by Russian dissident and novelist Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Putin stated the West was brazenly racist and seemed down on different peoples of the world.
“Energy over the world is what the so-called West has placed on the road in its sport – however the sport is harmful, bloody and I might say soiled,” Putin stated. “The sower of the wind, as they are saying, will reap the storm.”
Putin solid the battle in Ukraine as a battle between the West and Russia for the destiny of the second-largest Jap Slav nation. It was, he stated, partly a “civil warfare” as Russians and Ukrainians have been one individuals. Kyiv flatly rejects each these concepts.
Putin stated he thought continuously of the Russian losses in Ukraine, however stated solely Russia may assure its territorial integrity.
“I’ve all the time believed and consider in frequent sense so I’m satisfied that in the end the brand new centres of the multipolar world order and the West should begin an equal dialog concerning the future we share – and the sooner the higher,” Putin stated.