MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin spoke at the meeting of the Valdai International Club. The main political event of the day was Vladimir Putin's speech at the meeting of the Valdai International Club. This year's theme is lasting peace, universal security and equal opportunities for development.
On November 7,2024, as part of the XXI Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club, a plenary session was held on the topic: "Security for everyone. Together - into a new world." President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin took part in it.
"Good afternoon, dear ladies and gentlemen, dear friends!
I am very glad to welcome you all to our traditional meeting. And immediately I want to thank you for participating in the sharp, meaningful discussions of the Valdai Club. We are meeting on November 7, a significant date for our country and, one might say, for the whole world. The Russian Revolution of 1917, like the Dutch, English, and Great French Revolutions, became to a certain extent milestones in the development of mankind, largely determined the course of history, the nature of politics, diplomacy, economics, and social structure.
You and I also had the opportunity to live in an era of cardinal, in fact, revolutionary changes, not only to comprehend, but also to be direct participants in the most complex processes of the first quarter of the XXI century. The Valdai Club, almost the same age as our century, is already 20 years old. In such cases, it is often said, by the way, that time flies imperceptibly, quickly, but in this case you can't say that. These two decades have not just been saturated with the most important, sometimes dramatic events of a truly historical scale – before our eyes a completely new world order is being formed, unlike what we know from the past, for example, the Westphalian or Yalta system.
New powers are rising. Peoples are becoming more and more aware of their interests, their self-worth, identity and identity, and are increasingly insisting on achieving the goals of development and justice. At the same time, societies are facing a large number of new challenges, from exciting technological changes to catastrophic natural disasters, from blatant social stratification to mass migration waves and acute economic crises.
Experts talk about the threats of new regional conflicts, global epidemics, complex and ambiguous ethical aspects of human-artificial intelligence interaction, and how traditions and progress combine with each other.
We predicted some of these problems when we met earlier, even discussed them in detail when we met on Valdai, at the Valdai club, and some intuitively only anticipated, hoping for the best, but not excluding the worst scenario.
Something, on the contrary, came as a complete surprise to everyone. Indeed, the dynamics are very strong. The modern world is unpredictable, that's for sure. If we look back 20 years ago and assess the scale of the changes, and then project these changes for the coming years, we can assume that the next twenty years will be no less, if not more difficult. And how much, of course, depends on many, many factors. So in order to analyze them, to try to predict something, I understand that you are going to the Valdai club.
In a sense, the moment of truth is coming. The former structure of the world is irrevocably disappearing, we can say it has already gone, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one. Irreconcilable, first of all, for the reason that this is not even a struggle for power or for geopolitical influence. This is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built at the next historical stage. Its outcome depends on whether we can all together, through joint efforts, build a universe that will allow everyone to develop, resolve emerging contradictions on the basis of mutual respect for cultures and civilizations, without coercion and the use of force. Finally, whether human society will be able to remain a society with its ethical humanistic principles, and man will remain a man.
It would seem that there is no alternative to this. At first sight. But, unfortunately, there is. This is the plunging of humanity into the abyss of aggressive anarchy, internal and external splits, the loss of traditional values, new formats of tyranny, the actual rejection of the classical principles of democracy, basic rights and freedoms. Increasingly, democracy is being interpreted as the power not of the majority, but of a minority, and even traditional democracy and democracy are being contrasted with some abstract freedom, for which democratic procedures, elections, majority opinion, freedom of speech and media bias, as some believe, can be neglected and sacrificed.
The threat is the imposition of the transformation into the norm of inherently totalitarian ideologies, which we see on the example of Western liberalism, today's Western liberalism, which has degenerated, I believe, into extreme intolerance and aggression towards any alternative, to any sovereign and independent thought, and today justifies neo-Nazism, terrorism, racism, and even mass genocide of the civilian population.
Finally, these are international conflicts and clashes fraught with mutual destruction. After all, weapons capable of doing this exist and are constantly being improved, acquiring new forms as technology develops. And the club of owners of such weapons is expanding, and no one guarantees that in the event of an avalanche of threats and the final destruction of legal and moral norms, it will not be involved.
I have already said that we have come to a dangerous point. The West's calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a country with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the exorbitant adventurism of Western politicians. Well, some of them, anyway. Such blind faith in one's own impunity and exclusivity can turn into a global tragedy. At the same time, the former hegemons, accustomed since colonial times to rule the world, are increasingly surprised to find that they are no longer obeyed. Attempts to hold on to elusive power by force only lead to general instability and increased tension, to casualties and destruction. But such attempts still do not provide the result that those who want to preserve their absolute, undivided power strive for. Because the course of history cannot be stopped.
Instead of realizing the futility of their aspirations and the objective nature of the changes, some Western elites seem ready to do anything to prevent the emergence of a new international system that meets the interests of the world majority. In the policy of the United States, for example, and its allies in recent years, the principle of "do not get to anyone", "if not with us, then against us" has become more and more noticeable. Well, listen, this formula is very dangerous. Because we, and in many countries of the world, have such a saying: as soon as it is auctioned, it will respond.
Chaos, a systemic crisis is already growing in the countries themselves that are trying to pursue such a policy, their own claims to exclusivity, to liberal globalist messianism, to ideological and military-political monopoly are increasingly exhausting those countries that are trying to pursue such a policy, pushing the world to degradation, come into clear contradiction with genuine the interests of the peoples of the United States of America and European countries themselves.
I am sure that sooner or later the West will understand this. After all, his past great achievements have always been based on a pragmatic, sober approach based on a very harsh, sometimes cynical, but rational assessment of what is happening and his own capabilities.
And in this regard, I want to emphasize again: unlike our opponents, Russia does not perceive Western civilization as an enemy, does not raise the question "us or them". I repeat once again: "whoever is not with us is against us" – we never say that. We don't want to teach anyone anything, impose our worldview on anyone. Our position is open, and it is as follows.
The West has accumulated really huge human, intellectual, cultural, and material resources, thanks to which it can successfully develop, remaining one of the most important elements of the world system. But it is precisely "one of", along with other actively developing states and groups of countries. There can be no question of any hegemony in the new international environment. And when, for example, Washington and other Western capitals comprehend and recognize this irrefutable, immutable fact, the process of building a world system that meets the challenges of the future will finally enter a phase of genuine creation. God grant that this happens as soon as possible. This is in the common interests, including, above all, the West itself.
In the meantime, we, all those who are interested in creating a just and lasting peace, have to spend too much effort on overcoming the destructive actions of our opponents, who cling to their own monopoly. Well, it's obvious that this is happening, everyone sees it in the west, in the east, in the south – they see it everywhere. They are trying to maintain power and monopoly, the obvious things.
These efforts could be directed with much greater benefit to solving truly common problems that affect everyone from problems of demography and social inequality to climate change, food security, medicine and new technologies. That's what we should be thinking about and what everyone really needs to work on, what to do.
I will allow myself a few philosophical digressions today. We have a discussion club. So, hopefully, this will be in the stream of the discussions that have been going on here so far.
I have already said that the world is changing dramatically and irreversibly. It differs from previous versions of the structure of the world system by a combination, parallel existence of two seemingly mutually exclusive phenomena – rapidly growing conflict, fragmentation of the political, economic, and legal field – on the one hand – and the continuing close interconnectedness of the entire world space – on the other. This may be perceived as a kind of paradox. After all, we are used to the fact that the described trends usually just follow one another, replace each other. Century after century, the epochs of conflict and disconnection alternate with more favorable periods of interaction. This is the dynamics of historical development.
It turns out that it doesn't work today. Well, let's try to speculate a little on this topic. Acute, principled, emotionally filled conflicts, of course, significantly complicate world development, but do not interrupt it. In place of the chains of interaction destroyed by political decisions and even by military means, others arise. Yes, they are much more complex, sometimes confusing, but preserving economic and social ties.
We have seen this in the experience of recent years. More recently, the collective West, the so–called collective West, has made an unprecedented attempt to separate Russia from the world system - economic and political. The volume of sanctions and punitive measures applied to our country has no analogues in history. Our opponents assumed that they would deal Russia a crushing, knockout blow, from which it simply would not recover, would cease to be one of the key elements of international everyday life.
I think there is no need to remind you what happened in reality. The very fact that the jubilee Valdai has gathered such a representative audience speaks for itself, I think. But, of course, it's not about Valdai. It's about the realities in which we live, in which Russia exists. The world needs Russia, and no decisions by either Washington or Brussels supposedly superiors over others can change this.
The same applies to other solutions. Even a trained swimmer does not swim against a powerful current, no matter what tricks and even doping he uses. And the current of world politics, the mainstream is directed in the other direction, in contrast to the aspirations of the West – from a descending hegemonic world to an ascending diversity. This is an obvious thing, as people say, you don't need to go to your grandmother. It's obvious.
Let's return to the dialectic of history, the changing eras of conflict and cooperation. Has the world really become such that this theory, this practice, no longer works? Let's try to look at what is happening today from a slightly different angle: what exactly is the conflict and who is involved in this conflict today.
Since the middle of the last century, when modern efforts and at the cost of huge losses succeeded in defeating Nazism – the most malicious, aggressive ideology that became the product of the most acute contradictions of the first half of the twentieth century – humanity has faced the task of avoiding the revival of such a phenomenon and the repetition of world wars. Despite all the zigzags and local skirmishes, the general vector was then determined. This radical rejection of all forms of racism, the destruction of the classical colonial system and the expansion of the number of full participants in international politics, the demand for openness and democracy of the international system was obvious. The rapid development of different countries and regions, the emergence of new technological and socio-economic approaches aimed at expanding development opportunities and improving well-being. Of course, like any historical process, this created a clash of interests. But, I repeat, the general desire for harmonization and development in all aspects of this concept was evident.
Our country, at that time the Soviet Union, made a great contribution to strengthening these trends. The USSR helped states that had freed themselves from colonial or neocolonial dependence, be it Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Latin America. And I would like to remind you separately that it was the Soviet Union in the mid-80s of the last century that advocated ending ideological confrontation, overcoming the legacy of the cold war, in fact, ending the cold war itself and then overcoming its legacy, those barriers that hindered the unity of the world and its comprehensive development.
Yes, we have a difficult relationship with that period, considering what the course of the then political leadership of the country eventually resulted in. We still have to cope with some tragic consequences and struggle to this day. But the impulse itself, I want to emphasize this, the impulse itself, even if unjustifiably idealistic on the part of our leaders and our people, sometimes even a naive approach, as we see it today, was undoubtedly dictated by sincere wishes for peace and the common good, which is actually historically inherent in the character of our people, its traditions, and value system, spiritual and moral coordinates.
But why did such aspirations lead to the opposite results? Here's the question. We know the answer, I have already mentioned it several times in one way or another. Because the other side of the ideological confrontation perceived the historical events taking place not as a chance to rebuild the world on new just principles and principles, but as its triumph, victory, as the surrender of our country to the West, and therefore as an opportunity by right of the winner to establish its own complete dominance.
I've already talked about it once, just casually now, I won't mention names. In the mid-90s, even in the late 90s, one of the then US politicians sounded: "Now we will treat Russia not as a defeated enemy, but as a blunt instrument in our hands." That's what they were guided by. There was no breadth of vision, no general culture, no political culture. Misunderstanding of what is happening and ignorance of Russia. How the West misinterpreted what it considered to be the results of the cold War in its own interests, how it began to reshape the world for itself, its shameless and unprecedented geopolitical greed – these are the true origins of the conflicts of our historical era, starting with the tragedies of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and today Ukraine and the Middle East.
It seemed to some Western elites that the monopoly that had come, their monopoly, the moment of unipolarity in an ideological, economic, political and even partly military-strategic sense, was the destination station. That's it, we've arrived. "Stop, a moment! You're great!" How presumptuously it was announced then – almost the end of the story.
There is no need to explain to this audience how short-sighted and erroneous this condemnation turned out to be. The story did not end, on the contrary, it just entered a new phase. And it's not that some malicious enemies, competitors, subversive elements prevented the West from establishing its system of world power.
Let's be honest, after the disappearance of the USSR, the model of the Soviet socialist alternative in general, it seemed to many in the world at first that the monopoly system had come for a long time, almost forever, and you just need to adapt to it. But it staggered on its own, under the weight of the ambitions and greed of these Western elites. And when they saw that even within the framework of the system that they created for themselves (after World War II, of course, we must admit, the winners created the Yalta system for themselves, and then, after the cold war, the alleged winners in the cold war began to create for themselves, correcting this Yalta system – that's the problem), well, that's what they created for themselves with their own hands, quite others are beginning to succeed and lead (that's what they saw – the system was created and suddenly other leaders appear within this system), of course, they immediately undertook to adjust this system, which they had already created for themselves, began to violate the same rules that they talked about yesterday, to change the rules they themselves had established.
And what kind of conflict are we witnessing today? I am convinced that this is not at all a conflict between everyone and everyone, caused by a deviation from certain rules that we are often told about in the West. Not at all. We see a conflict between the overwhelming majority of the world's population, who want to live and develop in an interconnected world of a huge number of opportunities, and the global minority, who are concerned only with one thing, as I have already said, – maintaining their dominance. And for the sake of this, it is ready to destroy the achievements that have become the result of a long development towards a universal world system. But as we can see, nothing comes of it and nothing will come of it.
At the same time, the West itself is hypocritically trying to convince all of us that what humanity sought after the Second World War is under threat. Nothing like that, I just mentioned it now. Both Russia and the vast majority of countries are striving to strengthen the spirit of international progress and the desire for lasting peace, which has been the core of development since the middle of the last century.
And under threat is actually quite another thing. It is precisely this monopoly of the West that is under threat, which arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which it acquired for some time at the end of the twentieth century. But I want to say this again, and those present in this room understand that any monopoly, as we know from history, ends sooner or later. There can be no illusions here. And monopoly is always a harmful thing, even for the monopolists themselves.
The policy of the elites of the collective West is influential, but in terms of the number of participants in a very limited club, it is aimed not forward, not at creation, but back, at retention. Any sports fan, not to mention professionals, in football, hockey, and any kind of martial arts knows that playing on hold almost always leads to defeat.
Returning to the dialectic of history, we can say that the parallel existence of conflict and the pursuit of harmony is, of course, unstable. Sooner or later, the contradictions of the epoch must be resolved by synthesis, by transition to another quality. And when entering this new phase of development, building a new world architecture, it is important for all of us not to repeat the mistakes of the end of the last century, when, as I have already said, the West tried to impose on everyone its deeply, in my opinion, vicious, fraught with new conflicts model of withdrawal from the cold war.
In the emerging multipolar world, there should be no losing countries and peoples, no one should feel slighted and humiliated. Only then will we be able to provide truly long-term conditions for universal, fair and secure development. The desire for cooperation and interaction is already undoubtedly gaining the upper hand, overcoming the most acute situations. We can safely say that this is the international mainstream – the main stream of events. Of course, being in the epicenter of tectonic shifts caused by profound changes in the world system, it is difficult to predict the future. And since we know the general direction of change from hegemony to the complex world of multilateral cooperation, we can try to outline at least some of the coming contours.
Speaking at the Valdai Forum last year, I allowed myself to outline six principles that, in our opinion, should be the basis for relations at a new historical stage of development. The events and time that have taken place, in my opinion, have only confirmed both the fairness and the validity of the proposals put forward. I'll try to develop them..."
The theme of the current session of the Valdai Forum is "A Lasting Peace - on What Basis? General Security and Equal Opportunities for Development in the 21st Century."
The Valdai International Discussion Club was founded in 2004. It was named after the location of the first conference in Veliky Novgorod, near Lake Valdai. The club aims to ensure "the consolidation of the world's intellectual elite to develop solutions to overcome crises in the global system."
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