Putin Before and After Valdai

Today, President Putin addresses the Valdai Club as he has done annually for awhile. Prior to that, however, he conducted some important meetings that deserve scrutiny: The October 25 meeting with members of the newly formed Coordinating Council under the Government to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation; the following day's meeting with heads of security agencies and special services of the CIS countries that built on the previous discussion; both of which led to a special session of Russia's Security Council yesterday evening, of which little information's available. I note that all the above Russian transcripts are now available in English at the Kremlin's English web page, so I'll only post a few extracts instead from them.

Here're Putin's opening remarks at the Coordinating Council meeting that illustrate the new urgency to advance ahead of the curve of events:

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

As you know, the Executive Order to establish the Coordination Council under the Russian Government was signed on October 21.

My colleagues told me many times and for different reasons – in connection with the economic restrictions and the conduct of the special military operation – about the need to update procedures and regulations on decision-making in the most diverse areas of activity. This concerns the economy in general and individual branches of production, the Armed Forces, supporting the special military operation with everything necessary and so on.

We faced certain difficulties and the need to upgrade our work, give it a new momentum and new character when we were responding the coronavirus pandemic. We managed to do much then to update these regulations and get rid of the archaic procedures that are preventing us from moving forward at the pace the country needs.

Now we are faced with the need to more rapidly resolve issues associated with providing support for the special military operation and the need to counter economic restrictions that were imposed on us, which are truly unprecedented without any exaggeration. I have spoken many times with many of those present at this meeting about issues related to the need to update our entire work to improve administrative procedures. We have approached these problems many times from various angles.

And now the situation is such that life itself is pushing us to give this effort the most profound consideration and develop common approaches to updating all procedures, all administrative procedures, everything that is part of “governance” in the broadest sense of the word. And this, of course, cannot be done without broad and deep coordination between all efforts, all entities, all ministries, agencies with entirely different scopes – officials responsible for security and economics, and regional governments. This is precisely the purpose that the Coordination Council was created for.

Let me remind you that the Coordination Council was to have formulated target objectives for each specific effort by today. These target objectives are not ready yet, but I have no doubt that they will be sent in in the near future.

The Coordination Council includes deputy prime ministers, heads of agencies, including security ones, representatives of the Executive Office and of Russian regions. As you know, it is headed by the Prime Minister, and I would like to give him the floor now.

This same message of the need to move faster and with increased diligence and efficiency was relayed at the CIS meeting along with the need to increase joint efforts in all areas of security as the employment of NATO's Terrorist Foreign Legion is now a certainty:

Our joint efforts are especially important now. The potential for conflict remains very high both in the world as a whole and at the regional level. We see the rise of new risks and challenges to our collective security.

This is caused above all by a dramatic aggravation in global geopolitical confrontation. The world is changing and becoming multipolar before our very eyes. However, some members of the international community are doing everything in their power to preserve their faltering hegemony and to this end, they are using various political, military, economic, information and other methods and means, from destroying the legal framework of strategic stability to adopting unilateral sanctions against those who reject their policy.

They do not even stop short of openly subversive actions. I am referring to the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This actually amounts to the destruction of the common European energy infrastructure. This is being done, although, to put it mildly, these methods are doing colossal damage to the European economy and are seriously impairing the quality of life for millions of people. And besides, they are keeping silent about who has done this and who stands to gain from it.

Some countries have long been using the tactics of blackmail, pressure and intimidation throughout the CIS space. In particular, attempts continue to be made to implement ‘colour revolution’ scenarios, methods involving nationalism and extremism are employed, and armed conflicts, which directly threaten the security of all CIS members, are being stoked.

We can see the goals of those who are doing this in Ukraine, which has been made an instrument of US foreign policy. The country has actually lost its sovereignty and is being directly governed by the United States, which is using it as a battering ram against Russia, Belarus, which is a member of our Union State, and the CSTO and the CIS in general.

At the same time, we can see the United States’ real attitude to its client states. Ukraine was almost immediately turned into a testing site for military biological experiments and is being flooded with weapons, including heavy weaponry, without any heed to the Kiev regime’s statements about its desire to obtain nuclear weapons. The Kiev authorities have declared this desire publicly, but everyone keeps silent. We also know about their plans to use a so-called “dirty bomb” as a provocation.

As for threats in the CIS space, I would like to say that the level of threat coming from ISIL, Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations has not decreased. They are trying to infiltrate CIS countries and are creating undercover cells, while the concentration of terrorist groups in Afghanistan, especially on the borders of Central Asian states, certainly carries the potential risk of invasion in the region.

It is obvious that the CIS as a whole and its individual states have never faced such comprehensive threats before. It is therefore our common task to protect our nations from them as much as possible, to strengthen stability and peace in the CIS space and to continue to promote mutually beneficial integration processes, which have provided an example of truly partner relations over the past decades.

We must make use of all the forces and means available to us to fulfil these tasks. Of course, we must also make the fullest possible use of our experience and contacts, which, as we have seen more than once, are noticeably increasing the potential and efficiency of each of our agencies.

One of the priority tasks is to jointly counter any attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the CIS countries. We know what this is. To resist it, we must more actively reveal and curb the work of foreign secret services, aimed at destabilising the situation in each individual CIS member-state.

And with all the above in mind, we look at Putin's Valdai Club address, whose transcript is only in Russian currently. Putin's awareness that his audience has a high degree of prior knowledge and are often present at Valdai Club annually allows him to omit prefacing details and refer to past performances, and all of that can be seen in his opening remarks:

At the Valdai Discussion Club, we have repeatedly talked about the shifts – serious, big shifts that have already taken place and are taking place in the world, the risks associated with the degradation of world institutions, with the erosion of the principles of collective security, with the replacement of international law with the so-called rules – I wanted to say, it is clear by whom, but, perhaps, and this is inaccurate – it is not clear by anyone invented. what these rules are based on, what is inside these rules.

Apparently, there is only an attempt to establish one rule, so that the powers that be – now they are talking about power, I am talking about global power – have the opportunity to live without any rules at all and everything is allowed to them, everything would get away with, no matter what they do. These are, in fact, the very rules that we are constantly, as people say, talk about, that is, they constantly talk about it.

The value of the Valdai discussions is that there are a variety of estimates and forecasts. How true they were is shown by life itself, the strictest and most objective examiner is life. So it shows how true our preliminary discussions were in previous years.

Alas, events continue to develop according to the negative scenario, which we have talked about more than once and not twice during previous meetings. Moreover, these events have turned into a large-scale, systemic crisis, and not only in the military-political, but also in the economic and humanitarian spheres.

As he shifts into specifics, Putin makes a very important observation that there's no “collective West” but one hegemonic master that controls a group of disparate nations that have ceded their sovereignty to the Master. But it's very important to know that the Master's relationship to those nations is that of a chess master to his pawns:

The so-called West – conditionally, of course, there is no unity there – it is clear that this is a very complex conglomerate, nevertheless, let's put it this way that this West in recent years and especially in recent months has taken a number of steps to exacerbate. As a matter of fact, they always play for aggravation, there is nothing new here either. This is the incitement of war in Ukraine, these are provocations around Taiwan, the destabilization of the world food and energy markets. The latter, of course, was not done on purpose, there is no doubt about it, but due to a number of systemic errors by the Western authorities that I have already mentioned. And as we are now seeing, in addition to this, there is also the destruction of pan-European gas pipelines. This is a transcendent thing, but nevertheless we are witnessing these sad events.

Power over the world is exactly what the so-called West has put on the line in its game. But this game is certainly dangerous, bloody and, I would say, dirty. It denies the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness, and does not put the interests of other states in anything. In any case, if it does not directly talk about denial, but in practice this is exactly what is being implemented. No one, except those who formulate these very rules, which I have mentioned, has the right to original development: everyone else must be "combed" under these very rules.

Fortunately, the gambit has met with resistance and blowback has resulted. Russia certainly but also China and others are determined to attain their goals:

In this regard, I would like to remind you of Russia's proposals to our Western partners to build trust and build a system of collective security. Last December, they were once again thrown aside.

But in the modern world, it is unlikely to sit out. The one who sows the wind – as they say – will reap the storm. The crisis has indeed acquired a global character, it affects everyone. There is no need to have any illusions here.

In fact, humanity now has two ways: either to continue to accumulate a load of problems that will inevitably crush all of us, or still together to try to find solutions, albeit imperfect, but working, capable of making our world more stable and safer.

You know, I have always believed and still believe in the power of common sense. Therefore, I am convinced that sooner or later both the new centres of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start an equal conversation about a common future for us, and the sooner the better, of course. And in this regard, I will outline some extremely important accents for all of us.

What we see already is the Rest of the World (RoW) is having that conversation in its various collective forums that other nations are lining up to join because they abhor the “rules” that are being forced upon them that are essentially offshoots of the domestic efforts by the Master to divide and rule its own polity with Russia being the first major target of the Cancel Spear:

Today's events have overshadowed environmental problems – oddly enough, but I would like to start with this. Climate change issues are no longer at the top of the agenda. But these fundamental challenges have not disappeared, they have not disappeared anywhere, they are only growing.

One of the most dangerous consequences of the disruption of the ecological balance is the reduction of biodiversity in nature. And now I turn to the main topic for which we all gathered: is it less important to have other diversity – cultural, social, political, civilizational?

At the same time, simplification, erasure of all and any differences have become almost the essence of the modern West. What's behind this simplification? First of all, it is the disappearance of the creative potential of the West itself and the desire to restrain and block the free development of other civilizations.

There is also a direct mercantile interest here: imposing their values, consumer stereotypes, unification, our opponents – so I will carefully call them – are trying to expand the markets for their products. Everything is very ended up on this track being primitive. It is no accident that the West claims that it is its culture and worldview that should be universal. If this is not explicitly stated – although it is also said directly often – but if they do not speak directly, then this is how they behave and insist, in fact, on the fact of life, insist that these values be unconditionally accepted by all other participants in international communication.

I will quote from the famous Harvard speech of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn. As early as 1978, he noted that the West is characterized by a "continuing blinding of superiority" – all of which is still happening today – which "supports the notion that all vast areas on our planet should develop and evolve to the current Western systems ..." The year is 1978. Nothing has changed.

Myself and other analysts no longer agree that the first Cold War ended with the demise of the USSR, that instead it has continued and was escalated by those who presumed to be victors so they could implement what Solzhenitsyn saw and outed more than a decade beforehand. As with the behavior of all imperialist nations in their treatment of those under their control, the Outlaw US Empire in 1996 announced its goal to attain full spectrum dominance over the planet, which signaled its willingness and ability to do anything, even killing its own people as it planned to do for very similar reasons in 1962. As we saw, NATO went on the offensive, invading and expanding, breaking promises and treaties as it went. The Master seemed to think it was going to have an open field to run in, so it refused to listen to those saying if it didn't stop on its own then it would be forced to halt its ways. In 2004, Putin announced Russia had a new form of weapon—hypersonic missiles that differed from ballistic missiles. And in 2007 at Munich, Putin again told NATO to rethink what it was doing. Finally in 2015, Russia intervened in Syria to halt NATO's war on that nation, very likely spurred by the 2014 coup in Ukraine and reaction to Crimea's very legal return to Russia. Putin continues:

Over the past nearly half century, this blindness that Solzhenitsyn was talking about – openly racist and neocolonial in nature – has taken on simply ugly forms, especially after the so-called unipolar world emerged. What do I want to say to that? Confidence in one's infallibility is a very dangerous state: from it is one step to the desire of the "infallibles" themselves to simply destroy those who they do not like. As they say, "cancel" – let's think at least about the meaning of this word.

Even in the midst of the Cold War, at the peak of the confrontation of systems, ideologies and military rivalry, no one even thought of denying the very existence of the culture, art, science of other peoples – their opponents. It never even occurred to anyone! Yes, certain restrictions were imposed on educational, scientific, cultural and, unfortunately, sports ties. Nevertheless, both soviet and American leaders of that time had enough understanding that the humanitarian sphere should be treated delicately, studying and respecting the rival, sometimes borrowing something from him in order to preserve at least for the future the basis for sound, fruitful relations.

And now what's going on? The Nazis once came to the burning of books, and now the Western "guardians of liberalism and progress" have slid down to the prohibitions of Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky. The so-called culture of abolition, and in fact – we have already talked about this many times – the real abolition of culture decimates everything living and creative, does not allow the development of free thought in any of the areas: neither in the economy, nor in politics, nor in culture.

The liberal ideology itself has changed beyond recognition today. If initially classical liberalism understood the freedom of each person as the freedom to say what you want, to do what you want, then already in the XX century liberals began to declare that the so-called open society has enemies – it turns out that an open society has enemies – and the freedom of such enemies can and should be limited, or even canceled. Now it has reached the point of absurdity, when any alternative point of view is declared subversive propaganda and a threat to democracy.

Whatever comes from Russia is all the "intrigues of the Kremlin." But look at yourself! Are we really that omnipotent? Any criticism of our opponents – any! – is perceived as "the intrigues of the Kremlin", "the hand of the Kremlin". Some nonsense. What have you slipped down to? At least move your brains, express something more interesting, state your point of view somehow conceptually. It is impossible to blame everything on the machinations of the Kremlin.

Certainly, WW2's stated goals of delivering the Four Freedoms to humanity (Freedom of Speech; Freedom of Worship; Freedom from Want; Freedom from Fear) was already being attacked by those who announced it in 1946 (Iron Curtain Speech), and the UN Charter was immediately broken by what then became the Outlaw US Empire when it came into force 77 years ago in 1945 with its incursions into Eastern Europe to promote/continue the Fascist OUN in Ukraine and oust all left-leaning attempts to form governments in “liberated” Europe, with Greece being the prime example. This cancelation of the desires by those who actually defeated the Nazis began a trend that has culminated in today's crisis:

All this was prophetically predicted in the XIX century by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. One of the characters in his novel "Demons", the nihilist Shigalev, described the bright future invented by him in this way: "coming out of boundless freedom, I conclude with boundless despotism" – this, by the way, is what our Western opponents came to. He is echoed by another protagonist of the novel , Pyotr Verkhovensky, arguing that widespread betrayal, denunciation, espionage are necessary, that society does not need talents and higher abilities: "Cicero's tongue is cut off, Copernicus' eyes are gouged out, Shakespeare is beaten with stones." This is what our Western opponents are coming to. What is this if not the modern Western culture of abolition?

Great thinkers were, and I'm grateful, to be honest, to my assistants who found these quotes.

What can I say to that? History, of course, will put everything in its place and cancel not the greatest works of 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 discretion. The ego of such figures, as they say, is off the scale, but no one will even remember their names in a few years. And Dostoevsky will live, like Tchaikovsky, Pushkin, no matter how much anyone would like it.

It was on unification, on financial and technological monopoly, on the erasure of all and sundry differences that the Western model of globalization, neocolonial in its essence, was built. The task was clear – to strengthen the unconditional dominance of the West in the world economy and politics, and for this purpose to put at its service the natural and financial resources, intellectual, personnel and economic capabilities of the entire planet, to do this under the sauce of the so-called new global interdependence.

Here I would like to recall another Russian philosopher, Alexander Zinoviev, whose centenary of birth we will celebrate just the other day, on October 29. More than 20 years ago, he said that for the survival of Western civilization at the level it has reached, "the whole planet is necessary as a medium of existence, all the resources of mankind are needed." That's what they claim to be, that's just the way it is.

Moreover, in this system, the West initially laid a huge head start for itself, since it itself developed its principles and mechanisms – as now the very principles that are constantly repeated and which are an incomprehensible "black hole": no one knows what it is. But as soon as the benefits of globalization began to be derived not by Western countries, but by other states, and above all, we are talking, of course, about the large states of Asia, the West immediately changed or completely abolished many rules. And the so-called sacred principles of free trade, economic openness, equal competition, even the right to property were suddenly immediately forgotten, completely. As something became profitable for themselves - so immediately, on the go, in the course of the game, they change the rules.

Or another example of the substitution of concepts and meanings. For many years, Western ideologists and politicians have been saying and telling the whole world: there is no alternative to democracy. True, they were talking about the Western, the so-called liberal model of democracy. They arrogantly rejected all other variants and forms of people's power with contempt and, I want to emphasize this, through the lip. This manner has developed for a long time, since colonial times: everyone is considered second-class people, and they are considered exceptional. And so it goes on for centuries to this day.

But today, the absolute majority of the world community demands democracy in international affairs and does not accept any form of authoritarian dictate of individual countries or groups of states. What is this, if not a direct application of the principles of democracy at the level of international relations?

And what is the position of the "civilized" – in quotation marks – West? If you're a Democrat, you'd think you should welcome this natural desire for freedom for billions of people – but no! The West calls it the undermining of the liberal order based on the rules, launches economic and trade wars, sanctions, boycotts, color revolutions, prepares and conducts all sorts of coups.

Ukraine will now become the topic, but before Ukraine there were many other events as described by Putin in the above sentence in many nations in a long-running series of events that began almost immediately after WW2's end as the Master aimed at keeping its level of plunder as high as possible for as long as possible, a policy goal determined in 1948 but visualized before 1940. In his essay published in the NY Times in 1944, Vice President Henry Wallace wrote about Fascism and Fascists in the USA, and accurately described the very sorts of people who would come to control the post-war US Federal Government. In the decades that followed, the tools used by the ruling clique have changed and are now known as Neoliberalism of which those known as Neocons are also practitioners. Dr. Michael Hudson is IMO the best chronicler of how these tools were formed and utilized beginning with his Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (3rd Edition); its sequel, Global Fracture: The New International Economic Order (2nd Edition); Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy; and The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism; some of these can be read for free online at The Internet Archive, which can be joined at no cost. Back to Putin:

One of them led to tragic consequences in Ukraine in 2014 – they supported, even said, how much money was spent on this coup. In general, they are simply, they are not ashamed of anything. They took Soleimani and killed an Iranian general. You could treat Soleimani any way you wanted, but this is the official face of another state! They killed them in a third country and said, yes, we killed. What is it anyway? Where do we live?

Washington habitually continues to call the current world order liberal in the American way, but in fact, every day this notorious "order" multiplies the chaos and, I add, becomes more and more intolerant even towards the Western countries themselves, to their attempts to show any independence. Everything is being suppressed at the root, and sanctions are being imposed against their own allies – without any embarrassment! And they agree with everything, lowering their heads low.

For example, the July proposals of Hungarian parliamentarians to enshrine in the eu treaty their commitment to European Christian values and culture were perceived not even as a fronde, but as a direct hostile diversion. What's that? How do we understand this? Yes, someone may like it, someone may not like it.

Over the past thousand years, we in Russia have developed a unique culture of interaction between all the world's religions. There is no need to abolish anything: neither Christian values, nor Islamic, nor Jewish values. We have other world religions. We just need to treat each other with respect. In a number of regions of the country – I just know this firsthand – people go together, celebrate Christian holidays, Islamic, Buddhist, and Jewish, and do it with pleasure, congratulating each other and rejoicing for each other.

Not here. Why not? At least we would discuss. That's amazing!

Without exaggeration, all this is not even a systemic, but a doctrinal crisis of the neoliberal model of the American world order. They have no ideas of creation and positive development, they simply have nothing to offer the world, except to maintain their dominance.

I am convinced that real democracy in a multipolar world primarily presupposes the ability of any people – I want to emphasise this – any society, any civilization to choose its own path, its own socio-political system. If the United States and the European Union have such a right, then the countries of Asia, the Islamic states, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, and the states of other continents certainly have such a right. Of course, our country and Russia have it, and no one will ever be able to dictate to our people what kind of society and on what principles we should build.

The direct threat to the political, economic and ideological monopoly of the West is that alternative social models may emerge in the world – more effective, I want to emphasise this, more effective in today, bright, attractive than those that exist. But such models will definitely develop – this is inevitable. By the way, American political scientists, specialists, they write about this directly. True, their authorities are not yet listening very much, although they cannot help but see these ideas that are expressed on the pages of political science journals and in discussions.

Of course, such models already exist. China just finished modifying its model and emphasized that it doesn't expect any other nations to duplicate it, that nations should develop their own unique model that works for their nation's unique characteristics, that there cannot be any one-size-fits-all as dictated by Neoliberalism. Hudson's Destiny describes the three main currents now existing. By the end of our current century, I expect there to be over 100 different models with the overthrow of the current hegemony that will allow nations to freely develop and finally deliver the Four Freedoms to their people. Putin continues:

Development should proceed precisely in the dialogue of civilizations, based on spiritual and moral values. Yes, different civilizations have a different understanding of man, his nature - it is often on the surface only different, but everyone recognizes the highest dignity and spiritual essence of man. And it is extremely important to have a common, common foundation on which we can and must build our future.

What do I want to emphasize here? Traditional values are not some fixed set of postulates that everyone should adhere to. Of course not. Their difference from the so-called neoliberal values is that in each case they are unique, because they stem from the tradition of a particular society, its culture and historical experience. Therefore, traditional values cannot be imposed on anyone – they simply need to be respected, to take care of what every nation has chosen for centuries.

This is our understanding of traditional values, and this approach is shared and accepted by the majority of humanity. This is natural, because it is the traditional societies of the East, Latin America, Africa, Eurasia that form the basis of world civilization.

Respect for the peculiarities of peoples and civilizations is in the interests of everyone. In fact, this is in the interests of the so-called West. Losing its superiority, it is quickly becoming a minority on the world stage. And, of course, the right of this Western minority to their own cultural identity, of course, I want to emphasize this, must be ensured, it is necessary to treat this with respect, of course, but, I emphasize, on a par with the rights of everyone else.

If Western elites believe that they will be able to introduce into the minds of their people, their societies strange, in my opinion, newfangled trends like dozens of genders and gay parades, so be it. Let them do what they want! But what they definitely don't have the right to do is demand that others follow in the same direction.

We see that complex demographic, political and social processes are underway in Western countries. Of course, this is their internal affair. Russia does not interfere in these issues and is not going to do so – unlike the West, we do not get into someone else's yard. But we expect that pragmatism will prevail and Russia's dialogue with the genuine, traditional West, as well as with other equal centers of development, will become an important contribution to the construction of a multipolar world order.

I would like to add that multipolarity is a real, and in fact, the only chance for Europe to restore its political and economic subjectivity. What is a sin to hide, we all understand, and they talk about it in Europe directly: today this legal personality of Europe – to put it mildly, so as not to offend anyone – is very limited.

The world is inherently diverse, and the West's attempts to drive everyone under one template are objectively doomed, nothing will come of it.

And Putin has vowed that it won't succeed because that appears to be the historical mission for Russians and Russia. Humans are social animals and attempts to impinge on that reality meets quick resistance leading to counter attempts to further constrain that natural impulse. Most of those efforts are now done via Media and its use of language and imagery to instill a specific narrative in the societies collective mind, what's known more specifically as propaganda but now has many euphemisms. The world sees these efforts and actions by the Master through its very invasive use of technology to spy on the entire planet, something that predates the internet by over a decade, and in other cases much longer. The world has had enough and is busy developing its resistance. Putin continues:

The arrogant desire for world leadership, and in fact, for dictate or for the preservation of leadership through dictate, in fact, turns into a decrease in the international authority of the leaders of the Western world, including the United States, and an increase in distrust of their negotiability as a whole. Today they say one thing – tomorrow another, they sign documents – tomorrow they refuse them, what they want, they do. There is no stability at all. How the documents are signed, what they talked about, what we can hope for – it is completely unclear.

If earlier only a few countries allowed themselves to argue with the same America, and this looked almost like a sensation, now it is already commonplace when a variety of states refuse Washington its groundless demands, despite the fact that it is still trying to put pressure on everyone. Wrong policy absolutely, in nowhere easy. Well, let it be their choice too.

I am convinced that the peoples of the world will not turn a blind eye to the coercive policy that has discredited itself, and every time the West will have to pay and pay an increasing price for trying to maintain its hegemony. In the place of these elites, the West would seriously think about such a prospect, just as some political scientists and politicians in the United States themselves are thinking about it, as I have already said.

In the current conditions of a tough conflict, I will say some things directly. Russia, being an independent, original civilization, has never considered and does not consider itself an enemy of the West. Americanophobia, Anglophobia, Francophobia, Germanophobia are the same forms of racism as Russophobia and anti-Semitism – however, as well as any manifestations of xenophobia.

We just need to clearly understand that there are, as I said before, two Wests – at least two, and maybe more, but at least two: the West of traditional, primarily Christian, values, freedom, patriotism, rich culture, and now Islamic values too – a significant part of the population of many Western countries professes Islam. This West is somewhat close to us, we have in many respects common, even ancient roots. But there is another West – aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as a tool of neoliberal elites. It is with the dictates of this West that Russia, of course, will never reconcile.

In 2000, after being elected President, what I was faced with, I will always remember this – remember the price we paid to destroy the terrorist nest in the North Caucasus, which the West then almost openly supported. Here, all the adults, most of you in this room, understand what I am talking about. We know that this is exactly what it was in practice: financial, political, information support. We've all been through it.

Moreover, [the West] not only actively supported terrorists on the territory of Russia, but also largely nurtured this threat. We know that. Nevertheless, after the stabilization of the situation when the main gangs of terrorists were defeated, including thanks to the courage of the Chechen people, we decided not to turn back, not to build ourselves offended, to go forward, to build relations even with those who actually worked against us, to establish and develop relations with everyone who wants it, on the basis of mutual benefit and respect for each other.

I thought it was in the common interest. Thank God, Russia survived all the difficulties of that time, survived, strengthened, coped with internal and external terrorism, preserved its economy, began to develop, and its defense capability began to increase. We tried to build relations with the leading Western countries and with NATO. The message was the same: let's stop being enemies, let's live amicably, let's have a dialogue, build trust, and therefore peace. We were absolutely sincere, I want to emphasise this, we clearly understood the complexity of such a rapprochement, but we went for it.

And what did we get in return? In short, we received "no" in all the main areas of possible cooperation. We have received ever-increasing pressure on us and the creation of hotbeds of tension near our borders. And the goal, if I may ask, what is this pressure? Well, which one? It's so easy to train, isn't it? Of course not. The goal is to make Russia more vulnerable. The goal is to turn Russia into a tool to achieve its own geopolitical goals.

Strictly speaking, this is a universal rule: they try to turn everyone into a tool in order to use these tools for their own purposes. And those who do not obey this pressure do not want to be such a tool – sanctions are imposed against them, all sorts of economic restrictions are imposed against them and against them, coups are being prepared or, where possible, carried out, carried out and so on. And in the end, if nothing can be done at all, the goal is one – to destroy, to sweep off the political map. But it has not worked and will never be possible to deploy and implement such a scenario in relation to Russia.

What else would you like to add? Russia is not challenging the elites of the West – Russia is simply defending its right to exist and freely develop. At the same time, we ourselves are not going to become some new hegemon. Russia is not proposing to replace unipolarity with bipolarity, tripolarity, and so on, and the dominance of the West with the dominance of the East, North, or South. This would inevitably lead to a new impasse.

And here I want to quote the words of the great Russian philosopher Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky, who believed that progress is not to go all in one direction, as some of our opponents push us – in this case, progress would soon stop, says Danilevsky – but to "proceed from the entire field that makes up the field of historical activity of mankind, in all directions." And he adds that no civilization can be proud to represent the highest point of development.

One point I continue to express is the need for humanity to mature, to progress beyond what I see as primitive, juvenile competition to see who's King of the Hill that destroys people and wastes scarce resources, a maturation seen as the best course of action by the few civilizations that made efforts to gain wisdom instead of riches by plunder, with wisdom seen as far more valuable than gold or gems. Moral philosophy through the centuries has agreed with that goal but hasn't been capable of convincing the teenaged minds of those afflicted with what the Greeks called Pleonexia that's often complicated by gross levels of hubris. Over 170 years ago, the Frenchman Frédéric Bastiat recognized how this acted as an addiction afflicting those in power and stated, “When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it,” and that's exactly what's evolved since the age of plunder began in earnest in 1500. Humanity must come to grips with what's been done, undo it, learn from it, and evolve/mature so that it cannot recur. Putin continues:

I am convinced that dictatorship can be opposed only by the freedom of development of countries and peoples, the degradation of the individual – love for man as a creator, primitive simplification and prohibitions – the blossoming complexity of cultures and traditions.

The meaning of today's historical moment is precisely that all civilizations, states and their integration associations are really opening up opportunities for their own, democratic, original path of development. And above all, we believe that the new world order should be based on law and right, be free, original and just.

Thus, the world economy and trade must become fairer and more open. Russia considers the process of forming new international financial platforms, including for the purposes of international payments, inevitable. Such platforms should be located outside national jurisdictions, be secure, depoliticized, automated and not depend on any single control center. Is it possible to do this or not? Yes of course. It will require a lot of effort, combining the efforts of many countries, but this can be done.

This will eliminate the possibility of abuse in the sphere of the new global financial infrastructure, will allow to effectively, profitably and safely do without the dollar and other so-called reserve currencies in international transactions. Moreover, using the dollar as a weapon, the United States and the West as a whole discredited the institution of international financial reserves. First, they were devalued due to inflation in the dollar and euro zones, and then they were pocketed by our gold and foreign exchange reserves.

The transition to settlements in national currencies will actively gain momentum – inevitably. This, of course, depends on the level of state of the issuers of these currencies, on the state of their economies, but they will strengthen, and such calculations will certainly gradually become dominant. This is the logic of the sovereign economic and financial policy of a multipolar world.

Further. Today, new centers of world development already have unique technologies and scientific developments in various fields and in many areas can successfully compete with Western transnational companies.

Obviously, we have a common, quite pragmatic interest in an honest and open scientific and technological exchange. Together, everyone will win more than individually. The majority, not the individual, super-rich corporations should benefit.

What is the situation today? If the West sells medicines or seeds of food crops to other countries, it orders the killing of national pharmaceuticals and breeding, in fact, in practice it all boils down to this; supplies machines and equipment – destroys local engineering. When I was Prime Minister, I understood this: as soon as the market is opened for a certain product group, everything is "laid down", and it is almost impossible to raise your head. That's how relationships are built. Thus, markets and resources are seized, countries lose their technological and scientific potential. This is not progress, but enslavement, reducing economies to a primitive level.

Technological development should not exacerbate global inequality, but reduce it. This is how Russia traditionally implements its foreign technology policy. For example, when we build nuclear power plants in other countries, we simultaneously create competence centres there, train national personnel – we create an industry, we are not just building an enterprise, but creating an entire industry. In fact, we are giving other countries the opportunity to make a real breakthrough in their scientific and technological development, reduce inequality, and bring their energy sector to a new level of efficiency and environmental friendliness.

I would like to stress once again that sovereignty and distinctive development in no way mean isolation or autarky, but, on the contrary, they presuppose active and mutually beneficial cooperation on just and equal principles.

If liberal globalization is the depersonalization, the imposition of the Western model on the whole world, then integration, on the contrary, is the disclosure of the potential of each civilization in the interests of the whole, for the sake of common gain. If globalism is a diktat, it all comes down to in the end, then integration is the joint development of common strategies that benefit everyone.

In this regard, Russia considers it important to more actively launch mechanisms for creating large spaces built on the interaction of neighboring countries, whose economy, social system, resource base, infrastructure complement each other. Such large spaces, in fact, are the basis of a multipolar world order – the economic basis. From their dialogue, a true unity of humanity is born, much more complex, original and multidimensional than in the simplified ideas of some Western ideologists.

The unity of humanity is not built on the command "do as I do", "be like us". It is formed taking into account and on the basis of the opinion of all, with a careful attitude to the identity of each society and people. It is on this principle that long-term interaction in a multipolar world can develop.

In this regard, it may be worth considering making the structure of the United Nations, including its Security Council, more reflective of the diversity of the world's regions. After all, asia, Africa, Latin America in the world of tomorrow will depend much more than is commonly believed today, and such an increase in their influence is certainly positive.

Let me remind you that Western civilization is not the only one even in our common Eurasian space. Moreover, the majority of the population is concentrated in the east of Eurasia - where the centers of the oldest civilizations of mankind arose.

The value and significance of Eurasia is that this continent is a self-sufficient complex with gigantic resources of any kind and enormous opportunities. And the harder we work to increase the connectivity of Eurasia, to create new ways, forms of cooperation, the more impressive success we achieve.

The successful activities of the Eurasian Economic Union, the rapid growth of the authority and influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, large-scale initiatives within the framework of the "One Belt, One Road", plans for multilateral cooperation to implement the North-South transport corridor and others, many other projects in this part of the world, I am sure, are the beginning of a new era, a new stage in the development of Eurasia. Integration projects here do not contradict, but mutually complement each other, of course, if they are carried out by neighboring countries in their own interests, and not implemented by external forces in order to split the Eurasian space, to turn it into a zone of bloc confrontation.

A natural part of Greater Eurasia could be its western extremity – Europe. But many of its leaders are hampered by the conviction that Europeans are better than others, that it is not appropriate for them to participate in some undertakings on an equal footing with others. Behind such arrogance, they somehow do not notice that they themselves have already become someone else's periphery, have turned into vassals – often without the right to vote.

This is the main body of Putin's speech. what remains is his review, his epilogue to be followed by an extensive Q&A session which I'll post as a separate article as this one approaches VK's limits. Putin's conclusion:

Dear colleagues!

The collapse of the Soviet Union also destroyed the balance of geopolitical forces. The West felt victorious and proclaimed a unipolar world order in which only its will, its culture, its interests had the right to exist.

Now this historical period of undivided domination of the West in world affairs is coming to an end, the unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past. We are at a historic juncture, with probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade ahead since the end of World War II. The West is not able to single-handedly control humanity, but it is desperately trying to do so, and most of the peoples of the world no longer want to put up with it. This is the main contradiction of the new era. In the words of the classics, the situation is to a certain extent revolutionary: the upper classes cannot, and the lower classes do not want to live like this, in the words of the classic.

This state of affairs is fraught with global conflicts or a whole chain of conflicts, which poses a threat to humanity, including the West itself. Constructively and constructively resolving such a contradiction is the main historical task today.

The change of milestones is a painful process, but natural and inevitable. The future world order is being formed before our eyes. And in this world order, we must listen to everyone, take into account every point of view, every people, society, culture, every system of worldviews, ideas and religious ideas, without imposing a single truth on anyone, and only on this basis, understanding our responsibility for fate – the fate of peoples, planets, to build a symphony of human civilization.

I would like to end with words of gratitude for the patience you have shown in listening to my message.

Thank you very much.

And it's very possible to become that inclusive, all one must do is participate, to listen as well as contribute; but for the Master, it must desist, solve its very large internal problems, and then it can become a listener. The one biggest thing the Master and its hand maidens must do is to reflect on their actions, for their behavior reflects their values for all to see, which is their biggest denial just as that of the wife beater—he's never wrong about anything, although he's wrong about being correct, a fact he's incapable of seeing.