Reuters, LONDON, October 27 - The United States and its allies control over the world is inevitably going to fall, according to President Vladimir Putin, who warned on Thursday that this is the most perilous decade since World War Two.
Announcing he had no regrets about what he calls "a special operation," Putin made one of his longest public speeches since sending troops into Ukraine on February 24. He also accused the West of fomenting the conflict and of engaging in a "dangerous, bloody, and dirty" game that was causing chaos around the globe.
In a discussion headlined "A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone," Putin, the supreme leader of Russia, declared that "the historical period of the West's undivided rule over world affairs is coming to an end."
"We are at a turning point in history; the decade that lies ahead is likely to be the most perilous, unexpected, and significant decade since the end of World War Two."
The 70-year-old former KGB spy arrived at the gathering of Russian academics more than an hour late and delivered his customarily biting analysis of what he saw as Western decadence and collapse in the face of emerging Asian powers like China.
Over the course of more than three and a half hours, he appeared at ease as he was questioned about nuclear war fears, his friendship with President Xi Jinping, and how he felt about the deaths of Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war, which he "partially" described as a civil war, a claim Kiev rejects.
While the West has put the most severe sanctions on Russia, one of the largest producers of natural resources to the globe, tens of thousands of people have died in the war.
THE DIRTY GAME
The Russian Putin cited comments made by former British Prime Minister Liz Truss about her willingness to activate London's nuclear deterrent if the situation called for it in order to accuse the West of escalating recent nuclear tensions.
He repeated a claim that Ukraine could launch a "dirty bomb" packed with radioactive material to accuse Moscow, a claim that Kyiv and the West have dismissed as untrue and devoid of supporting documentation.
He disputed Kyiv's assertion that the Russian charge would indicate that Moscow had plans to explode such a device on its own.
"That is not something we must do. There would be absolutely no benefit to doing that, "In addition, Putin stated that the Kremlin had retaliated against what it perceived to be nuclear blackmail by the West.
The largest conflict between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Soviet Union and the United States were on the verge of nuclear war, has been brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
When questioned about a potential nuclear escalation near Ukraine, Putin responded that there would always be a risk of using nuclear weapons.
When questioned about the Cuban Missile Crisis, he claimed that Russia's military strategy was defensive and made the joke that he didn't want to take the place of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who, along with John F. Kennedy, brought the world dangerously close to nuclear war before averting it.
"No way. No, I can't picture myself in Khrushchev's shoes "said Putin.
Putin cited Russian novelist and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard talk, in which he launched a direct attack on Western civilization, denouncing its empty materialism and "the blindness of superiority."
The so-called West has staked its claim to world dominance on a hazardous, bloody, and, in my opinion, dirty game, said Putin. "The power of the wind shall reap the storm," they say.
The sooner we start talking about our shared destiny, the better said Putin. "I have always believed and believe in common sense, so I am certain that sooner or later the new centers of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start an equitable discourse about the future we share.
He portrayed the Ukrainian conflict as a struggle between the West and Russia over control of the second-largest Eastern Slavic nation, which he claimed resulted in catastrophe for Kyiv.
Putin claimed to be continuously considering Russian casualties in Ukraine, but he refrained from going into specifics about what the West claims to be significant fatalities. However, he claimed that only Russia could ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The West will ultimately need to discuss the future of the globe with Russia and other big powers, according to Putin.