https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/0...onditions.html
Putin's Full Speech: BRICS, NATO Expansion and Ukraine Peace Talk Conditions
June 15, 2024
Last year the Canadian intelligence analyst Patrick Armstrong published this sound advice:
“LISTEN TO WHAT HE’S SAYING”
I’m fond of quoting the Duke of Wellington on intelligence:
All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was at the other side of the hill.’
“Find out what you don’t know by what you do“. It’s not easy, it’s not necessarily pleasant but it’s what you have to do in order to minimise your surprise when whatever it is actually comes over the hill at you.
Here’s former British Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow saying the same thing:
My advice to all young diplomats and analysts [is that] if you want to understand Mr Putin’s foreign policy, listen to what he’s saying. You won’t like it, but you need to understand it, you need to listen to it. The place to start is the Munich speech in 2007.
“Listen to what he says”. It’s quite easy to. Putin has said a lot and most of it appears on the Presidential website in English as well as the original Russian. Never read what the Western reporters say he says – they almost always distort it – read the original. I’m sure that both Wellington and Bristow would agree.
And that’s what intelligence is all about. Try and understand how the other guy sees things.
Every few years Putin comes out with a speech or memorandum which explains - past, presence and future - and argues for the position at large Russia is taking.
People who read these speeches will understand Russia. People who don't won't.
The later will miss the facts and come to false conclusions. Acting upon those they will weaken their own positions.
One can avoid doing so by reading Putin's latest speech held yesterday at the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It is quite long but has to be so as it necessarily touches on everything. It includes a kind of peace offer for Ukraine: Hand over the provinces Russia has recognized at its own and gain peace. It was and is not expected that the 'West' will move towards that direction. In consequence the aims of the war will have to change.
With nearly 10,000 words the speech is very long. No summarization will do it justice. I therefore urge you to read it in full.
The English language version was published in full by Sputnik. The authoritative official translation, which will soon appear on the Kremlin website, is not yet complete. As access to both sides may be limited a full copy of the speech is attached below.
What follows is a full reproduction of the English language version Sputnik put out.
Putin's Full Speech at Foreign Ministry: BRICS, NATO Expansion and Ukraine Peace Talk Conditions - Friday, June 15 2024
/* BEGIN OF PUTIN SPEECH */
Dear colleagues, good afternoon!
I am pleased to welcome you all, and at the beginning of our meeting, I want to thank you for your dedicated work in the interest of Russia and our people.
In this broad assembly, we last met in November 2021. Since then, many pivotal and, without exaggeration, fateful events have occurred both in our country and in the world. Therefore, I consider it important to assess the current situation in global and regional affairs and to set corresponding tasks for the foreign policy department. All these tasks are directed towards the primary goal: creating conditions for the sustainable development of the country, ensuring its security, and improving the well-being of Russian families.
Working in this direction in today's challenging and rapidly changing realities requires all of us to concentrate even more on our efforts, initiative, and persistence. It demands the ability not only to respond to current challenges but also to shape our own long-term agenda, to propose and discuss with partners, within the framework of open and constructive dialogue, solutions to fundamental issues that concern not only us but also the entire global community.
I reiterate: the world is changing rapidly. It will not be as it was before, neither in global politics, nor in the economy, nor in technological competition. More and more states are striving to strengthen their sovereignty, self-sufficiency, national and cultural identity. Countries of the Global South and East are coming to the forefront; the role of Africa and Latin America is growing. We have always, since Soviet times, talked about the importance of these regions of the world, but today the dynamics are entirely different, and this is becoming noticeable. The pace of transformation in Eurasia has also noticeably accelerated, where a number of large-scale integration projects are actively being implemented.
Today, on the basis of the new political and economic reality, the contours of a multipolar and multilateral world order are being formed, and this is an objective process. It reflects the cultural-civilizational diversity that, despite all attempts at artificial unification, is organically inherent to humanity.
These profound, systemic changes undoubtedly inspire optimism and hope because the establishment of the principles of multipolarity and multilateralism in international affairs, including respect for international law and broad representation, allows us to collectively address the most complex problems for the common good, to build mutually beneficial relationships, and cooperation between sovereign states in the interests of the well-being and security of peoples.
Such a vision of the future resonates with the aspirations of the absolute majority of the countries in the world. We see this, among other things, in the growing interest in the work of such a universal association as BRICS, which is based on a special culture of trustful dialogue, sovereign equality of participants, and mutual respect. During Russia's chairmanship this year, we will facilitate the smooth inclusion of new BRICS members into the working structures of the association.
I request the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to continue substantive work and dialogue with partners to arrive at the Kazan BRICS summit in October with a substantial set of agreed decisions that will set the direction for our cooperation in politics and security, economy and finance, science, culture, sports, and humanitarian ties.
Overall, I believe that the potential of BRICS will allow it to eventually become one of the core regulatory institutions of a multipolar world order.
In this regard, I note that the international discussion about the parameters of state interaction in a multipolar world, about the democratization of the entire system of international relations, is already underway. For example, with colleagues from the Commonwealth of Independent States, we agreed upon and adopted a joint document on international relations in a multipolar world. We invited partners to discuss this topic on other international platforms as well, primarily in the SCO and BRICS.
We are interested in ensuring that this dialogue develops seriously within the UN walls as well, including on such a fundamental, vital issue for all as the creation of a system of indivisible security. In other words, asserting in world affairs the principle that the security of some cannot be ensured at the expense of the security of others.
Let me remind you that at the end of the 20th century, after the end of the acute military-ideological confrontation, the world community had a unique chance to build a reliable, fair order in the field of security. This did not require much – just the simple ability to listen to the opinions of all interested parties and mutual willingness to consider them. Our country was precisely focused on such constructive work.
However, another approach prevailed. Western powers, led by the United States, believed that they had won the "Cold War" and had the right to independently determine how the world should be organized. The practical expression of this worldview was the project of the unlimited spatial and temporal expansion of the North Atlantic bloc, although there were, of course, other ideas on how to ensure security in Europe.
Our legitimate questions were answered with excuses, claiming that no one was planning to attack Russia and that NATO expansion was not directed against Russia. Promises made to the Soviet Union and then to Russia in the late '80s and early '90s about not including new members into the bloc were conveniently forgotten. If remembered at all, it was mockingly said that these assurances were verbal and thus non-binding.
We have consistently, in the 90s and later, pointed out the errors of the course chosen by Western elites, not just criticized and warned but proposed alternatives, constructive solutions, emphasized the importance of developing a mechanism for European and global security that would satisfy everyone – I want to emphasize, everyone. A simple listing of the initiatives that Russia has put forward over the years would take more than one paragraph.
Let's recall at least the idea of a European security treaty that we proposed back in 2008. These same topics were raised in the memorandum from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs handed over to the United States and NATO in December 2021.But all our attempts – and there were many, countless – to reason with our interlocutors, explanations, admonitions, warnings, requests from our side found absolutely no response. Western countries, confident not only in their own rightness but in their strength and ability to impose anything on the rest of the world, simply ignored other opinions. At best, they proposed discussing secondary issues that, in essence, resolved little or topics that were exclusively beneficial to the West.
Meanwhile, it quickly became apparent that the Western scheme, proclaimed as the only right one for ensuring security and prosperity in Europe and the world, did not actually work. Let's remember the tragedy in the Balkans. Internal problems – of course, they existed – that had accumulated in the former Yugoslavia sharply escalated due to gross external interference. Even then, NATO's main diplomatic principle emerged in all its glory – deeply flawed and fruitless in resolving complex interethnic conflicts, namely: blaming one side, which for some reason they didn't particularly like, for all sins and unleashing all political, informational, and military power, economic sanctions, and restrictions on them.
Later, the same approaches were applied in different parts of the world. We know this very well: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on – and they never brought anything but exacerbation of existing problems, broken lives of millions of people, the destruction of entire states, the spread of humanitarian and social disasters, and terrorist enclaves. In fact, no country in the world is safe from joining this sad list.
The rest here,
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/0...onditions.html
Re: WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia
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) but I asked AI as it was the quickest and the next generation imo to Wikipedia:
Accuracy here is REALLY important. (AI repeatedly lacks the nuance of human understanding, just grabbing whatever it can find like an obedient search engine. The sophisticated façade of its presentation disguises the fact that it doesn't know what it's writing.)
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