Most people in the English-speaking parts of the
world missed Putin's speech at the Valdai
conference in Sochi a few days ago, and, chances
are, those of you who have heard of the speech
didn't get a chance to read it, and missed its
importance. (For your convenience, I am pasting
in the full transcript of his speech below.)
Western media did their best to ignore it or to
twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think
or don't think of Putin (like the sun and the
moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an
opinion) this is probably the most important
political speech since Churchill's “Iron Curtain” speech of March 5, 1946.

In this speech, Putin abruptly changed the rules
of the game. Previously, the game of
international politics was played as follows:
politicians made public pronouncements, for the
sake of maintaining a pleasant fiction of
national sovereignty, but they were strictly for
show and had nothing to do with the substance of
international politics; in the meantime, they
engaged in secret back-room negotiations, in
which the actual deals were hammered out.
Previously, Putin tried to play this game,
expecting only that Russia be treated as an
equal. But these hopes have been dashed, and at
this conference he declared the game to be over,
explicitly violating Western taboo by speaking
directly to the people over the heads of elite clans and political leaders.

The Russian blogger
<https://chipstone.livejournal.com/1219546.html>chipstone
summarized the most salient points from Putin speech as follows:

1. Russia will no longer play games and engage in
back-room negotiations over trifles. But Russia
is prepared for serious conversations and
agreements, if these are conducive to collective
security, are based on fairness and take into
account the interests of each side.

2. All systems of global collective security now
lie in ruins. There are no longer any
international security guarantees at all. And the
entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.

3. The builders of the New World Order have
failed, having built a sand castle. Whether or
not a new world order of any sort is to be built
is not just Russia's decision, but it is a
decision that will not be made without Russia.

4. Russia favors a conservative approach to
introducing innovations into the social order,
but is not opposed to investigating and
discussing such innovations, to see if
introducing any of them might be justified.

5. Russia has no intention of going fishing in
the murky waters created by America's
ever-expanding “empire of chaos,” and has no
interest in building a new empire of her own
(this is unnecessary; Russia's challenges lie in
developing her already vast territory). Neither
is Russia willing to act as a savior of the world, as she had in the past.

6. Russia will not attempt to reformat the world
in her own image, but neither will she allow
anyone to reformat her in their image. Russia
will not close herself off from the world, but
anyone who tries to close her off from the world
will be sure to reap a whirlwind.

7. Russia does not wish for the chaos to spread,
does not want war, and has no intention of
starting one. However, today Russia sees the
outbreak of global war as almost inevitable, is
prepared for it, and is continuing to prepare for
it. Russia does not war¬nor does she fear it.

8. Russia does not intend to take an active role
in thwarting those who are still attempting to
construct their New World Order¬until their
efforts start to impinge on Russia's key
interests. Russia would prefer to stand by and
watch them give themselves as many lumps as their
poor heads can take. But those who manage to drag
Russia into this process, through disregard for
her interests, will be taught the true meaning of pain.

9. In her external, and, even more so, internal
politics, Russia's power will rely not on the
elites and their back-room dealing, but on the will of the people.

To these nine points I would like to add a tenth:

10. There is still a chance to construct a new
world order that will avoid a world war. This new
world order must of necessity include the United
States¬but can only do so on the same terms as
everyone else: subject to international law and
international agreements; refraining from all
unilateral action; in full respect of the sovereignty of other nations.

To sum it all up: play-time is over. Children,
put away your toys. Now is the time for the
adults to make decisions. Russia is ready for this; is the world?

Text of Vladimir Putin’s speech and a question
and answer session at the final plenary meeting
of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s XI
session in Sochi on 24 October 2014.

It was mentioned already that the club has new
co-organizers this year. They include Russian
non-governmental organizations, expert groups and
leading universities. The idea was also raised of
broadening the discussions to include not just
issues related to Russia itself but also global politics and the economy.

An organization and content will bolster the
club’s influence as a leading discussion and
expert forum. At the same time, I hope the
‘Valdai spirit’ will remain – this free and open
atmosphere and chance to express all manner of
very different and frank opinions.

Let me say in this respect that I will also not
let you down and will speak directly and frankly.
Some of what I say might seem a bit too harsh,
but if we do not speak directly and honestly
about what we really think, then there is little
point in even meeting in this way. It would be
better in that case just to keep to diplomatic
get-togethers, where no one says anything of real
sense and, recalling the words of one famous
diplomat, you realize that diplomats have tongues
so as not to speak the truth.
We get together for other reasons. We get
together so as to talk frankly with each other.
We need to be direct and blunt today not so as to
trade barbs, but so as to attempt to get to the
bottom of what is actually happening in the
world, try to understand why the world is
becoming less safe and more unpredictable, and
why the risks are increasing everywhere around us.

Today’s discussion took place under the theme:
New Rules or a Game without Rules. I think that
this formula accurately describes the historic
turning point we have reached today and the
choice we all face. There is nothing new of
course in the idea that the world is changing
very fast. I know this is something you have
spoken about at the discussions today. It is
certainly hard not to notice the dramatic
transformations in global politics and the
economy, public life, and in industry, information and social technologies.

Let me ask you right now to forgive me if I end
up repeating what some of the discussion’s
participants have already said. It’s practically
impossible to avoid. You have already held
detailed discussions, but I will set out my point
of view. It will coincide with other
participants’ views on some points and differ on others.

As we analyze today’s situation, let us not
forget history’s lessons. First of all, changes
in the world order – and what we are seeing today
are events on this scale – have usually been
accompanied by if not global war and conflict,
then by chains of intensive local-level
conflicts. Second, global politics is above all
about economic leadership, issues of war and
peace, and the humanitarian dimension, including human rights.

The world is full of contradictions today. We
need to be frank in asking each other if we have
a reliable safety net in place. Sadly, there is
no guarantee and no certainty that the current
system of global and regional security is able to
protect us from upheavals. This system has become
seriously weakened, fragmented and deformed. The
international and regional political, economic,
and cultural cooperation organizations are also going through difficult times.

Yes, many of the mechanisms we have for ensuring
the world order were created quite a long time
ago now, including and above all in the period
immediately following World War II. Let me stress
that the solidity of the system created back then
rested not only on the balance of power and the
rights of the victor countries, but on the fact
that this system’s ‘founding fathers’ had respect
for each other, did not try to put the squeeze on
others, but attempted to reach agreements.

The main thing is that this system needs to
develop, and despite its various shortcomings,
needs to at least be capable of keeping the
world’s current problems within certain limits
and regulating the intensity of the natural competition between countries.

It is my conviction that we could not take this
mechanism of checks and balances that we built
over the last decades, sometimes with such effort
and difficulty, and simply tear it apart without
building anything in its place. Otherwise we
would be left with no instruments other than brute force.

What we needed to do was to carry out a rational
reconstruction and adapt it the new realities in
the system of international relations.

But the United States, having declared itself the
winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this.

Instead of establishing a new balance of power,
essential for maintaining order and stability,
they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance.

The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the
signing of a peace treaty with clear and
transparent agreements on respecting existing
rules or creating new rules and standards. This
created the impression that the so-called
‘victors’ in the Cold War had decided to pressure
events and reshape the world to suit their own
needs and interests. If the existing system of
international relations, international law and
the checks and balances in place got in the way
of these aims, this system was declared
worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition.
Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux
riches behave when they suddenly end up with a
great fortune, in this case, in the shape of
world leadership and domination. Instead of
managing their wealth wisely, for their own
benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies.

We have entered a period of differing
interpretations and deliberate silences in world
politics. International law has been forced to
retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal
nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been
sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments
have replaced legal norms. At the same time,
total control of the global mass media has made
it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white.

In a situation where you had domination by one
country and its allies, or its satellites rather,
the search for global solutions often turned into
an attempt to impose their own universal recipes.
This group’s ambitions grew so big that they
started presenting the policies they put together
in their corridors of power as the view of the
entire international community. But this is not the case.

The very notion of ‘national sovereignty’ became
a relative value for most countries. In essence,
what was being proposed was the formula: the
greater the loyalty towards the world’s sole
power centre, the greater this or that ruling regime’s legitimacy.

We will have a free discussion afterwards and I
will be happy to answer your questions and would
also like to use my right to ask you questions.
Let someone try to disprove the arguments that I
just set out during the upcoming discussion.

The measures taken against those who refuse to
submit are well-known and have been tried and
tested many times. They include use of force,
economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in
domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of
‘supra-legal’ legitimacy when they need to
justify illegal intervention in this or that
conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes. Of
late, we have increasing evidence too that
outright blackmail has been used with regard to a
number of leaders. It is not for nothing that
‘big brother’ is spending billions of dollars on
keeping the whole world, including its own closest allies, under surveillance.

Let’s ask ourselves, how comfortable are we with
this, how safe are we, how happy living in this
world, and how fair and rational has it become?
Maybe, we have no real reasons to worry, argue
and ask awkward questions? Maybe the United
States’ exceptional position and the way they are
carrying out their leadership really is a
blessing for us all, and their meddling in events
all around the world is bringing peace,
prosperity, progress, growth and democracy, and
we should maybe just relax and enjoy it all?

Let me say that this is not the case, absolutely not the case.

A unilateral diktat and imposing one’s own models
produces the opposite result. Instead of settling
conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead
of sovereign and stable states we see the growing
spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there
is support for a very dubious public ranging from
open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.

Why do they support such people? They do this
because they decide to use them as instruments
along the way in achieving their goals but then
burn their fingers and recoil. I never cease to
be amazed by the way that our partners just keep
stepping on the same rake, as we say here in
Russia, that is to say, make the same mistake over and over.

They once sponsored Islamic extremist movements
to fight the Soviet Union. Those groups got their
battle experience in Afghanistan and later gave
birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The West if
not supported, at least closed its eyes, and, I
would say, gave information, political and
financial support to international terrorists’
invasion of Russia (we have not forgotten this)
and the Central Asian region’s countries. Only
after horrific terrorist attacks were committed
on US soil itself did the United States wake up
to the common threat of terrorism. Let me remind
you that we were the first country to support the
American people back then, the first to react as
friends and partners to the terrible tragedy of September 11.

During my conversations with American and
European leaders, I always spoke of the need to
fight terrorism together, as a challenge on a
global scale. We cannot resign ourselves to and
accept this threat, cannot cut it into separate
pieces using double standards. Our partners
expressed agreement, but a little time passed and
we ended up back where we started. First there
was the military operation in Iraq, then in
Libya, which got pushed to the brink of falling
apart. Why was Libya pushed into this situation?
Today it is a country in danger of breaking apart
and has become a training ground for terrorists.

Only the current Egyptian leadership’s
determination and wisdom saved this key Arab
country from chaos and having extremists run
rampant. In Syria, as in the past, the United
States and its allies started directly financing
and arming rebels and allowing them to fill their
ranks with mercenaries from various countries.
Let me ask where do these rebels get their money,
arms and military specialists? Where does all
this come from? How did the notorious ISIL manage
to become such a powerful group, essentially a real armed force?

As for financing sources, today, the money is
coming not just from drugs, production of which
has increased not just by a few percentage points
but many-fold, since the international coalition
forces have been present in Afghanistan. You are
aware of this. The terrorists are getting money
from selling oil too. Oil is produced in
territory controlled by the terrorists, who sell
it at dumping prices, produce it and transport
it. But someone buys this oil, resells it, and
makes a profit from it, not thinking about the

fact that they are thus financing terrorists who
could come sooner or later to their own soil and
sow destruction in their own countries.

Where do they get new recruits? In Iraq, after
Saddam Hussein was toppled, the state’s
institutions, including the army, were left in
ruins. We said back then, be very, very careful.
You are driving people out into the street, and
what will they do there? Don’t forget (rightfully
or not) that they were in the leadership of a
large regional power, and what are you now turning them into?

What was the result? Tens of thousands of
soldiers, officers and former Baath Party
activists were turned out into the streets and
today have joined the rebels’ ranks. Perhaps this
is what explains why the Islamic State group has
turned out so effective? In military terms, it is
acting very effectively and has some very
professional people. Russia warned repeatedly
about the dangers of unilateral military actions,
intervening in sovereign states’ affairs, and
flirting with extremists and radicals. We
insisted on having the groups fighting the
central Syrian government, above all the Islamic
State, included on the lists of terrorist
organizations. But did we see any results? We appealed in vain.

We sometimes get the impression that our
colleagues and friends are constantly fighting
the consequences of their own policies, throw all
their effort into addressing the risks they
themselves have created, and pay an ever-greater price.

Colleagues, this period of unipolar domination
has convincingly demonstrated that having only
one power centre does not make global processes
more manageable. On the contrary, this kind of
unstable construction has shown its inability to
fight the real threats such as regional
conflicts, terrorism, drug trafficking, religious
fanaticism, chauvinism and neo-Nazism. At the
same time, it has opened the road wide for
inflated national pride, manipulating public
opinion and letting the strong bully and suppress the weak.

Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means
of justifying dictatorship over people and
countries. The unipolar world turned out too
uncomfortable, heavy and unmanageable a burden
even for the self-proclaimed leader. Comments
along this line were made here just before and I
fully agree with this. This is why we see
attempts at this new historic stage to recreate a
semblance of a quasi-bipolar world as a
convenient model for perpetuating American
leadership. It does not matter who takes the
place of the centre of evil in American
propaganda, the USSR’s old place as the main
adversary. It could be Iran, as a country seeking
to acquire nuclear technology, China, as the
world’s biggest economy, or Russia, as a nuclear superpower.

Today, we are seeing new efforts to fragment the
world, draw new dividing lines, put together
coalitions not built for something but directed
against someone, anyone, create the image of an
enemy as was the case during the Cold War years,
and obtain the right to this leadership, or
diktat if you wish. The situation was presented
this way during the Cold War. We all understand
this and know this. The United States always told
its allies: “We have a common enemy, a terrible
foe, the centre of evil, and we are defending
you, our allies, from this foe, and so we have
the right to order you around, force you to
sacrifice your political and economic interests
and pay your share of the costs for this
collective defense, but we will be the ones in
charge of it all of course.” In short, we see
today attempts in a new and changing world to
reproduce the familiar models of global
management, and all this so as to guarantee their
[the US’] exceptional position and reap political and economic dividends.

But these attempts are increasingly divorced from
reality and are in contradiction with the world’s
diversity. Steps of this kind inevitably create
confrontation and countermeasures and have the
opposite effect to the hoped-for goals. We see
what happens when politics rashly starts meddling
in the economy and the logic of rational
decisions gives way to the logic of confrontation
that only hurt one’s own economic positions and
interests, including national business interests.

Joint economic projects and mutual investment
objectively bring countries closer together and
help to smooth out current problems in relations
between states. But today, the global business
community faces unprecedented pressure from
Western governments. What business, economic
expediency and pragmatism can we speak of when we
hear slogans such as “the homeland is in danger”,
“the free world is under threat”, and “democracy
is in jeopardy”? And so everyone needs to
mobilize. That is what a real mobilization policy looks like.

Sanctions are already undermining the foundations
of world trade, the WTO rules and the principle
of inviolability of private property. They are
dealing a blow to liberal model of globalization
based on markets, freedom and competition, which,
let me note, is a model that has primarily
benefited precisely the Western countries. And
now they risk losing trust as the leaders of
globalization. We have to ask ourselves, why was
this necessary? After all, the United States’
prosperity rests in large part on the trust of
investors and foreign holders of dollars and US
securities. This trust is clearly being
undermined and signs of disappointment in the
fruits of globalization are visible now in many
countries. The well-known Cyprus precedent and
the politically motivated sanctions have only
strengthened the trend towards seeking to bolster
economic and financial sovereignty and countries’
or their regional groups’ desire to find ways of
protecting themselves from the risks of outside
pressure. We already see that more and more
countries are looking for ways to become less
dependent on the dollar and are setting up
alternative financial and payments systems and
reserve currencies. I think that our American
friends are quite simply cutting the branch they
are sitting on. You cannot mix politics and the

economy, but this is what is happening now. I
have always thought and still think today that
politically motivated sanctions were a mistake
that will harm everyone, but I am sure that we
will come back to this subject later.

We know how these decisions were taken and who
was applying the pressure. But let me stress that
Russia is not going to get all worked up, get
offended or come begging at anyone’s door. Russia
is a self-sufficient country. We will work within
the foreign economic environment that has taken
shape, develop domestic production and technology
and act more decisively to carry out
transformation. Pressure from outside, as has
been the case on past occasions, will only
consolidate our society, keep us alert and make
us concentrate on our main development goals.

Of course the sanctions are a hindrance. They are
trying to hurt us through these sanctions, block
our development and push us into political,
economic and cultural isolation, force us into
backwardness in other words. But let me say yet
again that the world is a very different place
today. We have no intention of shutting ourselves
off from anyone and choosing some kind of closed

development road, trying to live in autarky. We
are always open to dialogue, including on
normalizing our economic and political relations.
We are counting here on the pragmatic approach
and position of business communities in the leading countries.

Some are saying today that Russia is supposedly
turning its back on Europe – such words were
probably spoken already here too during the
discussions – and is looking for new business
partners, above all in Asia. Let me say that this
is absolutely not the case. Our active policy in
the Asian-Pacific region began not just yesterday
and not in response to sanctions, but is a policy
that we have been following for a good many years
now. Like many other countries, including Western
countries, we saw that Asia is playing an ever
greater role in the world, in the economy and in
politics, and there is simply no way we can

afford to overlook these developments.

Let me say again that everyone is doing this, and
we will do so to, all the more so as a large part
of our country is geographically in Asia. Why
should we not make use of our competitive
advantages in this area? It would be extremely shortsighted not to do so.

Developing economic ties with these countries and
carrying out joint integration projects also
creates big incentives for our domestic
development. Today’s demographic, economic and
cultural trends all suggest that dependence on a
sole superpower will objectively decrease. This
is something that European and American experts
have been talking and writing about too.

Perhaps developments in global politics will
mirror the developments we are seeing in the
global economy, namely, intensive competition for
specific niches and frequent change of leaders in
specific areas. This is entirely possible.

There is no doubt that humanitarian factors such
as education, science, healthcare and culture are
playing a greater role in global competition.
This also has a big impact on international
relations, including because this ‘soft power’
resource will depend to a great extent on real
achievements in developing human capital rather
than on sophisticated propaganda tricks.

At the same time, the formation of a so-called
polycentric world (I would also like to draw
attention to this, colleagues) in and of itself
does not improve stability; in fact, it is more
likely to be the opposite. The goal of reaching
global equilibrium is turning into a fairly
difficult puzzle, an equation with many unknowns.
So, what is in store for us if we choose not to
live by the rules – even if they may be strict
and inconvenient – but rather live without any
rules at all? And that scenario is entirely
possible; we cannot rule it out, given the
tensions in the global situation. Many
predictions can already be made, taking into
account current trends, and unfortunately, they
are not optimistic. If we do not create a clear
system of mutual commitments and agreements, if
we do not build the mechanisms for managing and
resolving crisis situations, the symptoms of
global anarchy will inevitably grow.

Today, we already see a sharp increase in the
likelihood of a whole set of violent conflicts
with either direct or indirect participation by
the world’s major powers. And the risk factors
include not just traditional multinational
conflicts, but also the internal instability in
separate states, especially when we talk about
nations located at the intersections of major
states’ geopolitical interests, or on the border
of cultural, historical, and economic civilizational continents.

Ukraine, which I’m sure was discussed at length
and which we will discuss some more, is one of
the example of such sorts of conflicts that
affect international power balance, and I think
it will certainly not be the last. From here
emanates the next real threat of destroying the
current system of arms control agreements. And
this dangerous process was launched by the United
States of America when it unilaterally withdrew
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002,
and then set about and continues today to
actively pursue the creation of its global missile defense system.

Colleagues, friends, I want to point out that we
did not start this. Once again, we are sliding
into the times when, instead of the balance of
interests and mutual guarantees, it is fear and
the balance of mutual destruction that prevent
nations from engaging in direct conflict. In
absence of legal and political instruments, arms
are once again becoming the focal point of the
global agenda; they are used wherever and
however, without any UN Security Council
sanctions. And if the Security Council refuses to
produce such decisions, then it is immediately
declared to be an outdated and ineffective instrument.

Many states do not see any other ways of ensuring
their sovereignty but to obtain their own bombs.
This is extremely dangerous. We insist on
continuing talks; we are not only in favor of
talks, but insist on continuing talks to reduce
nuclear arsenals. The less nuclear weapons we
have in the world, the better. And we are ready
for the most serious, concrete discussions on
nuclear disarmament – but only serious
discussions without any double standards.

What do I mean? Today, many types of
high-precision weaponry are already close to
mass-destruction weapons in terms of their
capabilities, and in the event of full
renunciation of nuclear weapons or radical
reduction of nuclear potential, nations that are
leaders in creating and producing high-precision
systems will have a clear military advantage.
Strategic parity will be disrupted, and this is

likely to bring destabilization. The use of a
so-called first global pre-emptive strike may
become tempting. In short, the risks do not decrease, but intensify.

The next obvious threat is the further escalation
of ethnic, religious, and social conflicts. Such
conflicts are dangerous not only as such, but
also because they create zones of anarchy,
lawlessness, and chaos around them, places that
are comfortable for terrorists and criminals,
where piracy, human trafficking, and drug trafficking flourish.

Incidentally, at the time, our colleagues tried
to somehow manage these processes, use regional
conflicts and design ‘color revolutions’ to suit

their interests, but the genie escaped the
bottle. It looks like the controlled chaos theory
fathers themselves do not know what to do with
it; there is disarray in their ranks.

We closely follow the discussions by both the
ruling elite and the expert community. It is
enough to look at the headlines of the Western
press over the last year. The same people are
called fighters for democracy, and then
Islamists; first they write about revolutions and
then call them riots and upheavals. The result is
obvious: the further expansion of global chaos.

Colleagues, given the global situation, it is
time to start agreeing on fundamental things.
This is incredibly important and necessary; this
is much better than going back to our own
corners. The more we all face common problems,
the more we find ourselves in the same boat, so
to speak. And the logical way out is in
cooperation between nations, societies, in
finding collective answers to increasing
challenges, and in joint risk management.
Granted, some of our partners, for some reason,
remember this only when it suits their interests.

Practical experience shows that joint answers to
challenges are not always a panacea; and we need
to understand this. Moreover, in most cases, they
are hard to reach; it is not easy to overcome the
differences in national interests, the
subjectivity of different approaches,
particularly when it comes to nations with
different cultural and historical traditions. But
nevertheless, we have examples when, having
common goals and acting based on the same
criteria, together we achieved real success.

Let me remind you about solving the problem of
chemical weapons in Syria, and the substantive
dialogue on the Iranian nuclear program, as well
as our work on North Korean issues, which also
has some positive results. Why can’t we use this

experience in the future to solve local and global challenges?
What could be the legal, political, and economic
basis for a new world order that would allow for
stability and security, while encouraging healthy
competition, not allowing the formation of new
monopolies that hinder development? It is
unlikely that someone could provide absolutely
exhaustive, ready-made solutions right now. We
will need extensive work with participation by a
wide range of governments, global businesses,
civil society, and such expert platforms as ours.

However, it is obvious that success and real
results are only possible if key participants in
international affairs can agree on harmonizing
basic interests, on reasonable self-restraint,
and set the example of positive and responsible
leadership. We must clearly identify where
unilateral actions end and we need to apply
multilateral mechanisms, and as part of improving
the effectiveness of international law, we must
resolve the dilemma between the actions by
international community to ensure security and
human rights and the principle of national
sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of any state.

Those very collisions increasingly lead to
arbitrary external interference in complex

internal processes, and time and again, they
provoke dangerous conflicts between leading
global players. The issue of maintaining
sovereignty becomes almost paramount in
maintaining and strengthening global stability.

Clearly, discussing the criteria for the use of
external force is extremely difficult; it is
practically impossible to separate it from the
interests of particular nations. However, it is
far more dangerous when there are no agreements
that are clear to everyone, when no clear
conditions are set for necessary and legal interference.

I will add that international relations must be
based on international law, which itself should
rest on moral principles such as justice,
equality and truth. Perhaps most important is
respect for one’s partners and their interests.
This is an obvious formula, but simply following
it could radically change the global situation.

I am certain that if there is a will, we can
restore the effectiveness of the international
and regional institutions system. We do not even

need to build anything anew, from the scratch;
this is not a “greenfield,” especially since the
institutions created after World War II are quite
universal and can be given modern substance,
adequate to manage the current situation.

This is true of improving the work of the UN,
whose central role is irreplaceable, as well as
the OSCE, which, over the course of 40 years, has
proven to be a necessary mechanism for ensuring
security and cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic
region. I must say that even now, in trying to
resolve the crisis in southeast Ukraine, the OSCE
is playing a very positive role.

In light of the fundamental changes in the
international environment, the increase in
uncontrollability and various threats, we need a
new global consensus of responsible forces. It’s
not about some local deals or a division of
spheres of influence in the spirit of classic
diplomacy, or somebody’s complete global
domination. I think that we need a new version of
interdependence. We should not be afraid of it.
On the contrary, this is a good instrument for harmonizing positions.

This is particularly relevant given the
strengthening and growth of certain regions on
the planet, which process objectively requires
institutionalization of such new poles, creating
powerful regional organizations and developing
rules for their interaction. Cooperation between
these centers would seriously add to the
stability of global security, policy and
economy. But in order to establish such a
dialogue, we need to proceed from the assumption
that all regional centers and integration
projects forming around them need to have equal
rights to development, so that they can
complement each other and nobody can force them
into conflict or opposition artificially. Such
destructive actions would break down ties between
states, and the states themselves would be
subjected to extreme hardship, or perhaps even total destruction.

I would like to remind you of the last year’s
events. We have told our American and European
partners that hasty backstage decisions, for
example, on Ukraine’s association with the EU,
are fraught with serious risks to the economy. We
didn’t even say anything about politics; we spoke
only about the economy, saying that such steps,
made without any prior arrangements, touch on the
interests of many other nations, including Russia
as Ukraine’s main trade partner, and that a wide
discussion of the issues is necessary.
Incidentally, in this regard, I will remind you
that, for example, the talks on Russia’s
accession to the WTO lasted 19 years. This was
very difficult work, and a certain consensus was reached.

Why am I bringing this up? Because in
implementing Ukraine’s association project, our
partners would come to us with their goods and
services through the back gate, so to speak, and
we did not agree to this, nobody asked us about
this. We had discussions on all topics related to
Ukraine’s association with the EU, persistent
discussions, but I want to stress that this was
done in an entirely civilized manner, indicating
possible problems, showing the obvious reasoning
and arguments. Nobody wanted to listen to us and
nobody wanted to talk. They simply told us: this
is none of your business, point, end of
discussion. Instead of a comprehensive but – I
stress – civilized dialogue, it all came down to
a government overthrow; they plunged the country
into chaos, into economic and social collapse,
into a civil war with enormous casualties.

Why? When I ask my colleagues why, they no longer
have an answer; nobody says anything. That’s it.
Everyone’s at a loss, saying it just turned out
that way. Those actions should not have been
encouraged – it wouldn’t have worked. After all
(I already spoke about this), former Ukrainian
President Yanukovych signed everything, agreed
with everything. Why do it? What was the point?
What is this, a civilized way of solving
problems? Apparently, those who constantly throw
together new ‘color revolutions’ consider
themselves ‘brilliant artists’ and simply cannot stop.

I am certain that the work of integrated
associations, the cooperation of regional
structures, should be built on a transparent,
clear basis; the Eurasian Economic Union’s
formation process is a good example of such
transparency. The states that are parties to this
project informed their partners of their plans in
advance, specifying the parameters of our
association, the principles of its work, which
fully correspond with the World Trade Organization rules.

I will add that we would also have welcomed the
start of a concrete dialogue between the Eurasian
and European Union. Incidentally, they have
almost completely refused us this as well, and it
is also unclear why – what is so scary about it?

And, of course, with such joint work, we would
think that we need to engage in dialogue (I spoke
about this many times and heard agreement from
many of our western partners, at least in Europe)
on the need to create a common space for economic
and humanitarian cooperation stretching all the
way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Colleagues, Russia made its choice. Our
priorities are further improving our democratic
and open economy institutions, accelerated
internal development, taking into account all the
positive modern trends in the world, and
consolidating society based on traditional values and patriotism.

We have an integration-oriented, positive,
peaceful agenda; we are working actively with our
colleagues in the Eurasian Economic Union, the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS and
other partners. This agenda is aimed at
developing ties between governments, not
dissociating. We are not planning to cobble
together any blocs or get involved in an exchange of blows.

The allegations and statements that Russia is
trying to establish some sort of empire,
encroaching on the sovereignty of its neighbors,
are groundless. Russia does not need any kind of
special, exclusive place in the world – I want to
emphasize this. While respecting the interests of
others, we simply want for our own interests to
be taken into account and for our position to be respected.

We are well aware that the world has entered an
era of changes and global transformations, when
we all need a particular degree of caution, the
ability to avoid thoughtless steps. In the years
after the Cold War, participants in global
politics lost these qualities somewhat. Now, we
need to remember them. Otherwise, hopes for a
peaceful, stable development will be a dangerous
illusion, while today’s turmoil will simply serve
as a prelude to the collapse of world order.

Yes, of course, I have already said that building
a more stable world order is a difficult task. We
are talking about long and hard work. We were
able to develop rules for interaction after World
War II, and we were able to reach an agreement in
Helsinki in the 1970s. Our common duty is to
resolve this fundamental challenge at this new stage of development.

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