ST. PETERSBURG, June 17. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West to stop thinking "about themselves," otherwise a possible famine in Africa will increase migration.
"If the world's largest economies behave like this and 'vacuum up' all goods from the global market, including food, to their own homes, problems will grow," the head of state said on Friday, answering questions at a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). In his view, this "will lead not just to famine, but to new waves of emigration and migration flows, which already overwhelm the United States, whether it wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico or not, but the flows are coming and they do not diminish". "Domestically, former and current presidents can argue with each other all they want, but the migrant waves are coming," he added.
"If a famine in Africa, God forbid, comes, economic migration to Europe will increase. And what to do about it? The solution is simple: we must then stop this attitude in global affairs, when they think only about themselves and that's all," the Russian president pointed out. According to him, "if this continues, it will lead to difficult, severe problems." "Therefore, it is necessary to move to a different model of management and regulation, but this is a complex process," Putin noted, adding that, in his view, "the global community will inevitably come to this."
"The old models of the capitalist system are becoming obsolete, when it is only about making profit, the world is entering a phase of development where everyone is forced to think about more than just that," the Russian president said. "If we continue like this, the world becomes highly unbalanced and threats will be growing, this is the challenge of the time, so in order to keep the balance, we need to act differently, balancing and paying attention to all the components that lead to the violation of the balance," Putin believes.
Speaking about the task for Russia, the head of the state said: "First of all we must pay attention to the issues of economic growth based on the technological development, new models of economic management and social and political sphere". "Then we will be able to provide leadership where we have our competences," he specified.