On Thursday, October 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club, which, according to his press secretary Dmitry Peskov, will be “read and re-read.” “Paper” publishes excerpts from this speech.
🟢 “We have spoken more than once about the shifts that have already taken place and will take place in the world, about the risks of degradation of world institutions, the erosion of collective security and rules, invented by no one knows. There is one rule: that they get away with what they do.”
🟢 “Life is the strictest examiner. It shows how true our discussions have been in past years. Everything develops according to a negative scenario. It has escalated into a worldwide crisis.”
🟢 “The so-called West, conditional, the only one, is a complex conglomerate. Especially in recent years, he has taken several steps to escalate. They always play for aggravation: these are provocations in Ukraine, around Taiwan, destabilization in the market.”
🟢 “The West put everything on the line in this game. It is bloody, it blurs the borders and sovereignty of individual states. In today’s world, you can’t sit still. The wind sown will reap the whirlwind.”
🟢 “There are two ways: to accumulate a load of problems that will crush us, or to find a solution to the problem, not ideal, but working. I believe in the power of common sense and am confident in the centers of a multipolar world. The West will have to put up with it.”
🟢 “Today’s events have overshadowed environmental problems. Climate change is no longer on the top of the agenda. One of the dangerous consequences of ecological balance. But there is another balance in the world, a cultural one that is erasing the West.”
🟢 “Racist and neo-colonial enlightenment has taken on ugly forms. Confidence in one’s infallibility is a very dangerous state. It destroys everyone they don’t like. As they say, “cancel”. Even in the midst of the Cold War, it never occurred to anyone to deny the existence of the culture and art of their opponents.”
🟢 “At one time we reached the burning [книг] Nazis. And now the parents of liberalism have reached the point of banning Chekhov and Tchaikovsky. The culture of cancellation mows down everything alive and creative.”
🟢 “The liberal ideology itself has changed beyond recognition. If classical liberalism was understood as human freedom, then in the 20th century liberals said that the so-called open society has enemies – and the freedom of such enemies can and should be limited, or even canceled.
🟢 “Different civilizations have different understanding of their nature, but all recognize the spiritual essence of man. This is the common foundation upon which we must build our future. Traditional values are not a set of fixed postulates. Their difference from neoliberal values is that they are unique.”
🟢 “If the Western elites believe that they can introduce strange, in my opinion, newfangled trends about a million genders and gay parades into their people, then let them do what they want – but let them not require others to move in the same direction.”
🟢 “In the current conditions of a tough conflict, Russia, being an independent and original country, has never considered itself an opponent of the West. There are two West – traditional, it is close to us in some way, we have common ancient roots. There is another – aggressive, neo-colonial. Russia will never put up with the dictates of this West.”
🟢 “Russia is simply defending its right to exist. We are not trying to be a hegemon, we are not proposing to replace unipolarity with bipolarity.”
🟢 “The meaning of today’s historical moment is that a scenario for an original development path is opening before all states. The new world order must be built on the law, be free and fair.”
🟢 “The West is not the only common thing in the Eurasian space. Most are in the East, where mankind originated. The harder we work on the connectedness of Eurasia, the more impressive progress we will achieve.”
🟢 “The western tip of Europe could become part of Eurasia. But Europeans think they are better than others. They themselves do not notice how they have become someone else’s periphery, become vassals, often without the right to vote.
🟢 “Now the period of undivided dictate of the West and unipolarity is coming to an end. Ahead is the most dangerous and important decade since the end of World War II.”
🟢 “The future of the world order is being formed before our eyes, we must listen to everyone, without imposing truths on anyone. Thank you for the patience you have shown in listening to me.”
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