MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. The so-called rule-based order proposed by the West allows it to live without rules, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club plenary session.
"They have repeatedly spoken about the serious, major shifts that have already happened and are happening in the world, about the risks associated with the degradation of global institutions, with the erosion of collective security principles, with the substitution of international law with so-called rules," the Russian leader said.
"Here is what I want to say: 'It is clear who made them up,' but perhaps that is not accurate either. In general, it is not clear who made them up, what these 'rules' are based on, what is the content of these 'rules'," Putin noted. "Apparently, there is only an attempt to establish one rule: that the powers, I'm talking about global power, should be able to live without any rules at all, and they should be allowed to do whatever they want, get away with whatever they do," the Russian leader pointed out. "These are the very 'rules' that we are constantly being told about, as the people say, that is, they are constantly talking about it," he added.
The president said that in his opinion, the value of discussions at the Valdai Club was that "all kinds of assessments and forecasts are made here". "How accurate they were is shown by life itself: the most rigorous and objective examiner," the Russian president said.
"Unfortunately, the events so far continue to develop according to the negative scenario that we've talked about more than once and more than twice during previous [Valdai Discussion Club] meetings," Putin said. In his view, "these events have developed into a large-scale, systemic crisis, not only in the military and political, but also in the economic and humanitarian spheres.
Western steps
"As for the so-called West - conditionally, of course, there is no unity there, it is clear that it is a very complex conglomerate," Putin said. The Russian president stressed that "in recent years and especially in recent months, this very West has taken a number of steps to escalate [the situation in the world]". "As a matter of fact, they always push for escalation of tensions, there is nothing new here," Putin noted.
"That is inciting war in Ukraine, coming up with provocations around Taiwan, destabilizing the global food and energy markets," he listed. "The latter, undoubtedly, was not done on purpose, it was due to a number of systemic mistakes by these very Western authorities," the president specified.
"Plus there is the destruction of pan-European gas pipelines. This is an outrageous thing, but nevertheless we are witnessing these unfortunate events", the Russian head of state said. In his view, "global dominance is exactly what the so-called West has staked".