
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, October 5, 2023. © Sputnik via Reuters
October 5, 2023 (france24.com)
President Vladimir Putin said Russia is tasked “with building a new world” on Thursday and reiterated his position that Russia did not start the war in Ukraine but launched what it calls a “special military operation” to try to stop it.
In his yearly speech to the Valdai Discussion Club, being held in Sochi, Putin said “[Russia is] tasked, essentially, with building a new world,” adding the West was aiming for global “hegemony”.
He said the conflict was not therefore imperial or territorial but about the global order, and that the US, which had lost its hegemonic power and always needed an enemy, had lost touch with reality and grown arrogant.
“All the time, we hear ‘You must’, ‘You have to’, ‘We’re seriously warning you’. Who are you anyway? What right do you have to warn anyone? Maybe it’s time you yourself got rid of your arrogance, stopped behaving that way towards the world,” Putin said about the US.
Putin said Russia saw all civilisations as equal and was ready for “constructive cooperation” while the West, having forgotten the meaning of compromise, saw any country that opposed it as an enemy. He listed China, India and Arab nations as examples.
Putin also said the Russian economy was undergoing structural changes and, although it faced some challenges, had overcome all its problems connected to Western sanctions.