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A damaged residential building is seen in the town of Orikhiv, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, September 30, 2023. /CFP
A damaged residential building is seen in the town of Orikhiv, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, September 30, 2023. /CFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia’s current task is to build a new world and decried the “overwhelming arrogance” of some Western countries and Western hegemony as he delivered a speech at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi.
He said lessons were not learned from the military-ideological confrontation, and some countries mistook Russia’s readiness for constructive interaction for submission after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Russia has to respond to constant geopolitical pressure, Putin told the gathering, saying that Moscow knows attempts by some countries to establish a monopoly were doomed to failure, and he’s confident that a multipolar world will be established.
On conflict with Ukraine, Putin asserted that Russia did not start a war in Ukraine but launched a “special military operation” to try to stop one.
He said Russia, the world’s largest country by area, had no need to take territory from Ukraine. He said the conflict was not therefore imperial or territorial but about the global order, and that the West, which had lost its hegemonic power and always needed an enemy, had lost touch with reality.
“The war in Donbas has been going on for 10 years, but no one in the West cried for the children who died at the hands of Kyiv,” Putin said.
(With input from agencies)
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