Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the West’s “selfishness and arrogance” are pushing the world closer to a dangerous “point of no return.”
Addressing Russian Foreign Ministry officials in Moscow on Friday, Putin accused the United States and its allies in NATO of deceiving Moscow over the years-long conflict in Ukraine.
Putin said the US has long taken steps undermining global strategic stability, citing its withdrawal from treaties on anti-ballistic missile defense, on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, and on open skies.
“Let me also remind you that it was Washington that undermined strategic stability by announcing a unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,” Putin noted.
He added that Washington and its allies dismantled a confidence-building mechanism that had been active in Europe for a long time.
Putin said this misguided policy has led to an “extremely dangerous state of affairs,” alluding that this might lead to a nuclear showdown threatening the whole world.
“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,” TASS quoted Putin as saying.
“Calls for a strategic defeat of Russia, which possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the utter adventurism of Western politicians. They are either unaware of the scale of the threat they themselves pose or are simply obsessed with the belief in their own impunity and their own exceptionalism,” he said.
The Russian president said the West has also adopted misguided policies towards the Middle East, South Caucasus and Central Asia, leading to unfavorable outcomes.
“Two years ago, at the NATO summit in Madrid, they announced that the alliance would now deal with security issues not only in the Euro-Atlantic region but also in the Asia-Pacific region. It is obvious that behind this there is an attempt to step up pressure on those countries in the region whose development they are out to impede,” Putin said. “As you know, our country, Russia, is high on this list.”
Need for new security system
Putin stressed that the “Western model” of global security has effectively collapsed and that the world requires a new and more stable system in its place.
“Obviously, we are witnessing the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system. Today it simply does not exist, it needs to be essentially created anew,” Putin said.
