Most difficult decade since WWII is coming, but Russia sees no point in nuclear strike

The opening of the annual meeting of the Valdai Club devoted to the topic "World after hegemony: justice and security for all" took place on October 24. The number of participants included 111 representatives of 41 countries, including China, India, Germany and others.

The world is in for the most unpredictable decade since the end of World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the plenary session of the Valdai Club. The video of his speech is available on the official website of the event.

“We are standing on a historic crossing. Ahead of us there is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II,” Putin said.

In his opinion, the future world order is currently being formed. In the new world, one needs to listen to everyone and take into account every point of view rather than impose one truth for all, he believes.

Other conflicts may arise against the background of the current situation in the world and the desire of the West to dominate the world. The main historical goal is to resolve all contradictions constructively and creatively, he said.

World trade should be beneficial to all

As for world trade, it is the majority that should benefit from it, rather than individual super-rich corporations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the speech. 

Putin spoke critically about imports from Western countries. 

“If today the West sells medicines or seeds of food crops to other countries, it orders to kill national pharmaceuticals and selection. In fact, everything comes down to this in practice. If it supplies machine tools and equipment - it destroys the local engineering industry,” Putin said.

According to the Russian president, the "new centers of world development" have unique developments that allow them to compete with Western corporations.

He also stated that in the future multipolar world, it is settlements in national currencies that should dominate the world trade sphere. During his speech, Putin expressed his indignation about the fact that Western states "pocketed" Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves after the start of the military operation in Ukraine.

NATO was conquering Ukraine for 8 years

NATO has been developing on the territory of Ukraine for eight years, Vladimir Putin said during his speech.

“We saw what was happening. For eight years they had been working to create a fortified area at a fairly large depth in the Donbass. (...) We were aware that this process would continue. The further it would go, the more difficult and dangerous it would be for us, and we would be suffering more losses. These were our considerations that we were guided by. The NATO development of the territory was in full swing,” Putin said.

For Russia, the situation would have been completely different, if NATO had been building fortified areas and accumulating arms systems for a few more years.

Russia had to stop NATO in Ukraine

Putin also said that he was constantly thinking about the losses associated with Russia's special military operation in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Valdai forum that it was not Russia's fault that led to the special operation in Ukraine.

“Was it us who carried out the coup there that led to a series of tragic events, including our special military operation? No, we didn’t do it,” Putin stressed. Moscow's actions only "highlight the ongoing events more clearly and force certain inevitable processes to come.

When asked what pushed Moscow to kick off the special operation, Putin said that he had already named the reasons many times before.

• The first is NATO's plans to expand at the expense of Ukraine;
• the second one is Kyiv's refusal to comply with the Minsk agreements. 

“For us, all that meant that we had to do something with the Donbass,” he explained. “To recognise their independence (of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics - ed.) and simply leave them to the mercy of fate is generally unacceptable.” 

Russia knew what Kyiv was working on, so Moscow decided to launch the special operation to prevent the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass, Putin says.

It was not Moscow that shaped up this logic. It was dictated by the bloody anti-state coup in Ukraine in 2014, he added. 

Moscow had no choice but to help the people of Donbass, Vladimir Putin said during the speech at Valdai International Discussion Club.

“There was one plan and one goal of the special operation - to help people who live in the Donbass. This is where we start,” the president said.

There is civil war going on between Russia and Ukraine

Putin called Russians and Ukrainians one people. When asked whether if it was then possible to say that there was a civil war going on between Russia and Ukraine, Putin said: “Partly yes”.

He partly agrees with the interpretation of the special operation in Ukraine being a civil war, since Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.”

“But we ended up in different states, unfortunately, for a number of reasons,” Putin admitted. The main of these reasons was the decision during the formation of the Soviet Union to endow the "nationalist" Ukrainian Bolsheviks with "primordially Russian" territories. In this sense, according to the Russian president, Ukraine was developing as an artificial state.

It is worthy of note that President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky disagreed with such an opinion:

“We are definitely not one people. Yes, we have a lot in common <...> but we, I repeat once again, are not one people. If we were one nation, hryvnias would most likely be circulating in Moscow, and a yellow-blue flag would be flying over the State Duma. <...> Each of us has our own path,” the Ukrainian leader said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine in July 2021.

Nuclear strike on Ukraine makes no sense

Russia does not need to strike a nuclear blow on Ukraine as it makes no political or military sense, Putin said.

The head of state also advised to read the doctrine, which describes cases when Russia can use nuclear weapons.

On October 26, Russia's strategic nuclear forces conducted exercises to deliver a massive nuclear strike in response to a nuclear strike on the country's territory. A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. In addition, a Sineva ballistic missile was launched from the waters of the Barents Sea. In both cases, the target was the Kura test site in Kamchatka.

Putin accuses the West of nuclear rhetoric

The West is looking for additional arguments to oppose Russia, Putin said answering a question about the threat of nuclear war in the world.

"The fuss over the nuclear threat is primitive. The West is looking for additional arguments to oppose Russia," Putin said.

He also noted that the United States was the only country that used nuclear weapons. 

The West accuses Russia of an intent to use nuclear weapons in order to put pressure on neutral countries and Moscow's allies.

“The dictatorship of Western countries, their attempt to put pressure on all participants in international communication ends in nothing, and they are looking for additional arguments in order to convince our friends or neutral states that we all need to oppose Russia together. Provocations with nuclear weapons, forcing the very thesis about the possibility of its use by Russia are used precisely to influence our allies and neutral states,” he said.

Americans are awesome

Russian President Vladimir Putin admired the ability of the United States to maintain control over the countries against which the Americans had committed acts of aggression.

Putin referred to Japan, against which Washington had used nuclear weapons. 

“What was the expediency of using a bomb against Japan? There was none,” he said. According to him, there was no threat to US sovereignty then, and Japan's military machine was broken.

At the same time, he noted, Japanese textbooks, as a rule, say that it was the allies that struck a nuclear blow on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States keeps Japan under total control, and Tokyo can not even write the truth in Japanese textbooks. 

"Well done, Americans! We probably need to take an example from them in a way, they are awesome," Putin said. 

Russia is the only guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty

The only guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty is Russia - the country that created Ukraine, Putin said. 

According to the president, a similar statement would be true for both the territorial integrity and the Ukrainian statehood itself, if the relations between the two countries had not deteriorated.

“In this sense, Ukraine, of course, had been formed as an artificial state. After the Second World War - this is also a historical fact - Stalin delivered some Polish territories to Ukraine, some Hungarian and Romanian territories, having taken those territories away from those countries,” Putin explained.

Putin believes in the power of common sense

Sooner or later, the West will have to start an equal conversation with Russia about a common future. Putin said that he believed in the power of common sense. 

“That is why I am convinced that sooner or later the new centers of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start an equal conversation about a common future for us,” he said.