Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Your Excellencies,
First of all, let me thank all those present for agreeing to participate in the scientific and practical round table. In today’s world, having an independent point of view, striving to objectively understand difficult issues and try to understand the interlocutor is in itself a bold step!
The delegation of the Russian Federation in Vienna on military security and arms control issues is convinced of this every time during the meetings of the OSCE Forum.
I must say right away that we in no way planned to turn the event into a propaganda “cliche” with a pre-defined plot and conclusions. On the contrary, for open and productive discussions, we tried to attract the maximum possible expert audience to the event: diplomats, practitioners, public figures, representatives of scientific and educational circles. For our part, we will do everything possible to make every voice heard today.
The topic of the discussion is “The formation of a multipolar world order: regional and global challenges” was chosen by us for a reason. It has been brewing for a long time, but now, as it seems to us, it has broken out. The world is changing rapidly. As before, he will no longer be involved in global politics, economics, or technological competition. More and more States are striving to strengthen sovereignty, self-sufficiency, national and cultural identity. The countries of the Global South and the East are coming to the forefront, and the role of Africa and Latin America is growing. The pace of transformation in Eurasia has also accelerated markedly, where a number of large-scale integration projects are being actively implemented. Such a striking example, of course, is the BRICS, which acts as the engine for building a just, democratic world order based on the principles of genuine equality, free from dictate and power pressure. As you know, on January 1, Russia took over the chairmanship of the Association. After the accession of new members (Egypt, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia) the “ten” decided to take a break with new members for the time being in order to “digest” the new arrivals, who doubled the membership of this association. Agree, this fact convincingly testifies to the growing authority of the BRICS and its role in world affairs.
It is on the basis of the new political and economic reality that the contours of a multipolar and multilateral world order are being formed today, and this is an objective process. It is impossible, for example, to develop a comprehensive mechanism for a long-term Middle East settlement without taking into account the interests of all States in the region and without eliminating injustice to the Palestinian people.
Let me remind you that at the end of the 20th century, after the end of the acute military-ideological confrontation, the world community had a unique chance to build a reliable, fair security order. However, the Western powers, led by the United States, considered that they had won the cold war and had the right to independently determine how the world should be arranged. The practical expression of this worldview was the project of unlimited expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance in space and time.
Russia invariably, both in the 90s and later, pointed out the fallacy of the course chosen by the elites of the West, not just criticized and warned, but offered options, constructive solutions, and emphasized the importance of developing a mechanism for European and world security that suited everyone. Take, for example, the idea of a European security treaty, which Russia proposed back in 2008. These same issues were fixed in our proposals on security guarantees submitted to the United States and NATO in December 2021.
But all our repeated attempts to reason with the interlocutors did not find any answer at all. Western countries, being confident not so much in their own rightness as in their strength, their ability to impose anything on the rest of the world, simply ignored other opinions.
Meanwhile, it quickly became clear that the Western scheme, proclaimed the only correct one for ensuring security and prosperity in Europe and the world, does not actually work. Subsequent tragic events in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan were allowed to see this. The actions of the United States and its allies have brought nothing but aggravation of existing problems, broken destinies of millions of people, destruction of entire states.
Two years ago, at the NATO summit in Madrid, it was announced that the alliance would now deal with security issues – not only in the Euro-Atlantic area, but also in the Asia-Pacific region. Obviously, this is an attempt to increase pressure on those countries in the region whose development they have decided to restrain. As you know, one of the first places on this list is our country – Russia.
Let me also remind you that it was Washington that undermined strategic stability by announcing a unilateral withdrawal from anti-missile defense treaties, the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in open skies, and together with its NATO satellites destroyed the system of confidence-building measures and arms control that had been created for decades in the European space.
Ultimately, the selfishness and arrogance of Western states have led to the current extremely dangerous state of affairs. We have come unacceptably close to the point of no return. Calls to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, which has the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the exorbitant adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves pose, or they are simply obsessed with believing in their own impunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy.
And here we cannot and do not want to get around the issue of what is happening around us Ukraine. To do this, we invited not only relevant experts, but also our compatriots who were captured by the Ukronazis.
I would like to emphasize that the crisis related to Ukraine is not a conflict between two states, especially two peoples, caused by some problems between them. If this were the case, there is no doubt that Russians and Ukrainians, who share a common history and culture, spiritual values, millions of kinship, family, and human ties, would find a way to fairly resolve any issues and disagreements.
But the situation is different: the roots of the conflict are not in bilateral relations. The events around Ukraine are a direct result of the global and European development of the late XX – early XXI centuries, the aggressive, cavalier and absolutely adventurous policy that the West began to pursue long before the special military operation began.
By implementing the “Ukrainian project”, the United States, its allies and puppets have actually derailed not only the foundations of the European security architecture laid down in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and the OSCE Charter for European Security of 1999, but also put the whole world at risk of global war.
Anticipating the speeches of our guests on economic aspects, I would like to note that the “collective West” has discredited and weakened key market institutions by its actions. Using the IMF and By distorting the climate agenda, the World Bank is holding back the development of the global South. Losing in competition, even according to the rules that the West has written for itself, it uses prohibitive barriers, all kinds of protectionism. For example, the United States has actually abandoned the World Trade Organization as a regulator of international trade.
Distrust of the financial system based on Western reserve currencies is growing. There has been an outflow of funds from securities and debt obligations of Western states, as well as some European banks, which until recently were considered an absolutely reliable place to store capital. Gold is being exported. All this is happening against the background of the freezing by some Western countries of part of Russian assets and foreign exchange reserves. I would like to emphasize that by stealing Russian assets, they will take another step towards destroying the system that they themselves created and which for many decades ensured their prosperity and allowed them to consume more than they earn. It is becoming obvious to all countries and companies, sovereign funds, that their assets and reserves are far from safe, both in the legal and economic sense of the word. Do we need such a financial and economic model based on the will of the sovereign? Obviously not.
And finally, giving the floor to our experts, I want to note once again that there is no Euro-Atlantic security system today. It actually needs to be created anew. All this requires Russia, together with partners, with all interested countries, and there are many of them, to work out their options for ensuring global and regional security. In this regard, I would like to note that the international discussion on the parameters of interaction between states in a multipolar world, on the democratization of the entire system of international relations, of course, is already underway. So, with our partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States, we have agreed and adopted a joint document on international relations in a multipolar world. We invited our partners to talk on this topic at other international venues, primarily in the SCO and BRICS. We are interested in ensuring that this dialogue is seriously developed within the walls of the United Nations, including on such a basic, vital topic for everyone as the creation of an indivisible security system.
I am convinced that today’s discussions will help us to better analyze the essence of these problems and propose possible solutions for a broad international discussion.
Thank you.
A source
