Without a hint of irony over Ukraine, Putin rages against countries that meddle in other states

Without a hint of irony over Ukraine, Putin rages against countries that meddle in other states

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev arrive for a working breakfast of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Moscow, Russia May 9, 2023. 

Vladimir Smirnov | Sputnik | Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed countries that he said were trying to “impose their dominance” and rules on others, saying Wednesday that those that do were “completely ignoring the sovereignty” of other states.

Speaking at a conference on security issues Wednesday, Putin said the world was becoming increasingly unstable and that “new centers of tension are emerging.”

He laid the blame for this new era of turbulence at the door of unspecified “individual countries and associations” — widely understood to refer to Russia’s rivals in the West and NATO — that he said were trying “to preserve, retain their dominance, impose their own rules, completely ignoring the sovereignty, national interests, traditions of other states.”

“All this is accompanied by a build-up of military potential, unceremonious interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” Putin said, “as well as attempts to extract unilateral advantages from the energy and food crises provoked by a number of Western states.”

There was not a whiff of irony from Putin, a leader who over his 23 years in power in Russia has overseen a systematic program of interference in other countries’ internal affairs and sovereignty, most recently, in Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine 15 months ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on a screen at Red Square as he addresses a rally and a concert marking the annexation of four regions of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — in central Moscow on Sept. 30, 2022.

Alexander Nemenov | Afp | Getty Images

Military personnel wearing protective suits remove a police car and other vehicles from a public car park as they continue investigations into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on March 11, 2018 in Salisbury, England.

Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

Ignoring Ukraine’s sovereignty

It is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year that’s widely seen as one of most egregious instances of “ignoring the sovereignty” of another country in the 21st century, however.

When Russian launched its invasion, Putin tried to justify the move to a domestic audience, saying Russia wanted to “de-Nazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine, a country that has a Jewish president and is not in NATO.

Still, most onlookers understood that the stated aims hid Moscow’s real intention which was (and is) to overthrow the pro-Western government in Kyiv and regain its influence over the former Soviet republic.

Ukraine has been steadily trending toward its European neighbors for years, despite Russia’s attempts to maintain a pro-Kremlin leadership in the country. A pro-European uprising in Ukraine in 2014 resulted in the overthrow of the then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia’s preferred man in Kyiv.

Yanukovych fled to Russia in the ensuing political crisis, an event that Russia still slams as a “coup” that was orchestrated by the U.S., without presenting evidence. The uprising, or Maidan Revolution as Ukrainians know it, led to the start of armed hostilities between Russia and Ukraine with Russia invading Crimea in March 2014 and fomenting pro-Russian unrest — and an armed separatist movement — in the east of the country.

A giant wall mural showing a map of the Crimean peninsula filled with the flag of the Russian Federation, in Moscow, Russia, on Friday, March 28, 2014.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Russia blames NATO for insecurity

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov looks on, next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as they wait for the US-Russia summit at the Villa La Grange, in Geneva on June 16, 2021.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

Speaking at the same event Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the West wanted to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and claimed NATO weapons for Ukraine were being spread beyond the country’s borders.

“The collective West does not hide its intention to inflict a strategic defeat on us. The Kyiv regime is being used as an anti-Russian battering ram, which is being pumped up with NATO weapons. At the same time, part of the Western supplies — and an increasing part — are spreading uncontrollably around the world,” he said, news agency TASS reported.

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