Russian President Vladimir Putin this Friday during his speech at the Valdái Forum in Moscow. /
Russian president lashes out at the West for playing “a bloody and dirty game”
Like every year, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke this Thursday at the so-called Valdái Forum, referring to the Russian town where this ‘International Political Discussion Club’ was born. And, as in every edition of this political event, he once again did not leave a puppet with a head among the Western countries, especially the United States, whom he has once again accused of all the evils there have been and will have.
This time, due to the sanctions adopted for the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has emphasized the West’s attempts to “abolish” Russian culture. “The Nazis once went as far as burning books and now the Western guardians of liberalism and progress have slipped to the banning of the works of Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky (…) when Western countries always advocated a policy of culture universal”. But, in his words, “the abolition of Russian culture affects the development of free thought in politics, in the economy and in other areas.”
“History, of course, will put everything in its place and cancel not the greatest universally recognized geniuses of world culture, but those who today for some reason decided that they have the right to dispose of this world culture at their own discretion. », Putin said before those attending the Valdái Forum, which this year takes place in Moscow.
During his speech, the Russian president also said that Western countries “are imposing their consumer goals and stereotypes in order to increase the market area for their own production, for their own benefit.” “The West is sure of its infallibility … it is one step away from the desire of the infallible to destroy those they don’t like, as they say, by canceling them,” he added.
In his opinion, “the liberal ideology in the world has changed beyond recognition. If classical liberalism understood the freedom of each person as the freedom to say what you want and do what you want, in the 20th century liberals began to declare that the so-called open society has enemies and freedom from such enemies can and should be limited, when not cancelled. For the head of the Kremlin in the West “they have reached the absurdity that any alternative point of view is declared subversive propaganda and threatens democracy.”
He also attacked those who believe that behind everything bad that happens in the world are “the intrigues of the Kremlin” and wondered if “are we really so omnipotent? Any criticism of our opponents, anyone, is perceived as machinations of the Kremlin, the hand of the Kremlin” and deplored that “everything cannot be blamed on the Kremlin.” «They deny the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness (…) Russia is not challenging the elites of the West. Russia is simply defending its right to exist and develop freely. We are not going to become a kind of new hegemonic power », he declared before the attendees.
The top Russian leader assured that “Western rule is coming to an end, the unipolar world is a thing of the past. Ahead is the most unpredictable, dangerous and, at the same time, important decade since World War II. In his words, the current war in Ukraine “is only part of the tectonic movements in the entire world order.” He explained that the Ukrainian crisis “was generated not now, but a long time ago” and, after calling Ukraine an “artificial state”, he repeated that the cause and origin was the “coup d’état” after the revolt in kyiv in February 2014 when then President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) after fleeing to the Russian base in Sevastopol.
“out of stock” model
In short, Putin said yesterday that the Western powers are no longer in the attitude of “governing humanity on their own, although they are desperately trying to do so and the majority of the world’s people can no longer stand it.” «The American model is exhausted, it is in crisis, it no longer has anything to offer the world. Not only they and Europe have the right to choose their geopolitical path, so do the countries of Asia, including Russia, and Latin America”, he stressed.
In relation to the controversy surrounding the hypothetical use of nuclear weapons, the Russian president, who was the first to raise such a possibility by annexing Crimea in March 2014 and, on February 24, when he launched the invasion of the neighboring country, has now said that “it makes no political or military sense” to resort to such devices. What’s more, he has turned the issue around and now, according to him, it is the West that is threatening with the atomic bomb. He recalled that, to date, “the only country that has used this type of weaponry was the United States” in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He warned that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a danger that they will be used (…) although it is first of all the Western countries with their provocations that force the thesis that Moscow intends to use them to influence its allies and the neutral countries (…) it is a very primitive tactic». In his view, the West “is playing a dangerous, bloody and dirty game” by accusing Russia of wanting to resort to weapons of mass extermination.
Regarding the accusations that Ukraine is preparing to detonate a “dirty bomb”, Putin yesterday urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to move a delegation “as soon as possible” to Ukraine. “The IAEA wants to come (…) we are in favor, as soon as possible and in the widest possible way, since we know that the kyiv authorities do everything possible to erase the trace of these preparations” for the manufacture of the “dirty bomb”.
For the Russian leader “events in the world continue to develop according to a negative scenario, it has become a systemic crisis, not only in the political-military spheres, but also at the humanitarian and economic level.” Putin further criticized “the degradation of world institutions and the substitution of the concepts of international law.” He said he did not understand what the new rules are based on and argued that in the West he “wants to live without any rules.”