MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. Nobody has ever seen the "rules-based order," as no such international document exists, yet the phrase is constantly being rubbed in the world’s face, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said at the plenary session of an international forum against neocolonialism titled "For the Freedom of Nations!"

"This much-vaunted ‘rules-based order,’ who has ever seen it? Where does it exist? This is not a document of the United Nations, neither is it an international convention nor a law. And yet this order is constantly being rubbed in our faces, [with its proponents insistently] saying, you must comply with it," Medvedev stated. "Yet this is not an international document; I simply wish to highlight this fact," he added.

Speaking of the dangers of neocolonialism, the senior official quoted the famous African statesman Kwame Nkrumah (president of Ghana in 1960-1966 - TASS), who said: "A state in the grip of neocolonialism is not master of its own destiny." "This factor makes neocolonialism such a serious threat to peace on Earth. In order to retain their global influence, these neocolonial powers are using the most sophisticated and absolutely unprincipled methods, building a financial, scientific and technological, ideological and cultural monopoly, blocking alternative paths of development, treating the countries outside of the so-called ‘golden billion’ [or ‘global 1%’] as their property, while seeing their peoples as not even second-rate but third-rate peoples, frequently treating them obnoxiously, smugly, in an openly abusive manner, forcing so-called ‘democratic values’ on them under the guise of the mythical ‘rules-based order,’ while shamelessly meddling in the domestic affairs of independent nations," Medvedev stated.

He emphasized that this is happening because "the United States has decided that precisely this [global] order, which it adopted unilaterally somewhere over there, must be the template for all humankind."