©Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Russia, together with other countries, will assuredly achieve a fair world order, whereas the model under which certain countries develop at the expense of others will become a thing of the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, greeting the participants in the 11th International Meeting of High-Level Officials Responsible for Security Issues.
"I am confident that, together, we will achieve the formation of a more equitable, multipolar world, while the ideology of exceptionalism as well as the neocolonial system, which has undergirded the exploitation of the resources of the entire world, will inevitably recede into the past," he noted.
Putin assured the foreign security officials that Russia was ready to engage in the closest level of interaction with all interested countries in efforts to counteract common threats and tackle the challenges that humankind is facing today.
"We highly appreciate the fact that Russia has numerous allies and partners across diverse regions and continents. We sincerely cherish our historically strong, friendly, and genuinely trust-based ties with Asian, African and Latin American countries, and we will continue to do all we can to strengthen them," he assured his audience.
For the benefit of all nations Separately, Putin talked about the significance of the conference for the global situation, noting that, over the years, regular interactions between security officials aimed at sharing their expertise and assessments have proven their utility and relevance, and have been instrumental in resolving key issues of regional and global security as well as strategic stability.
The Russian president also noted that the conference’s agenda is very intensive and substantive. Above all, the meeting’s participants will discuss the current global situation and the prospects for its further development, as well as analyze the most pressing contemporary threats. "Among them are international terrorism, extremism, illegal arms and drug trafficking, transnational crime and illegal migration. And, of course, issues pertaining to food and information security," the Russian leader elaborated.
Putin hoped that the meeting would be constructive and produce useful results, while helping to determine new methods and areas for practical cooperation "for the benefit of countries and peoples, and in the interest of peace and stability on the planet."
The meeting is being held in the Moscow Region on May 23-25. Russia’s delegation is headed by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev.
NATO’s eastward expansion shares underlying intent with Hitlerian policies, Lavrov says
Behind NATO’s latest expansion push lie the same underlying intentions as the policies of Hitler, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an international meeting of high-level officials responsible for security issues in Moscow on Wednesday.
"In essence, NATO’s reckless expansion reflects the same intentions that undergirded the Hitlerian doctrine of ‘Drang nach Osten’ (German for ‘Drive to the East,’ which was the Nazi slogan justifying the conquest of Central and Eastern European lands - TASS)," Lavrov said.
©Alexander Shcherbak/TASS
According to Russia’s top diplomat, the United States has purposefully set about destroying the architecture of European security, "while focusing in particular on engendering threats that are unacceptable to Russia." "It is enough just to mention the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty more than 20 years ago, as well as from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and from the Open Skies Treaty," he maintained.
Lavrov accused Washington and its allies of marginalizing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a body that he said no longer played any role in European security. The Russian foreign minister criticized the NATO countries’ "provocative" course toward relentlessly expanding the alliance eastward, which he said has been done in spite of the top-level Western pledges made to the then-leadership of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand "one inch." Also, this policy "contravenes [Western countries’] commitments made at the highest level to refrain from bolstering their own security at the expense of the security of other [nations]," he lamented.
Russia against any attempts to stage color revolutions in Central Asia — diplomat
Russia will not tolerate any attempts to interfere in the affairs of Central Asian states in order to introduce color revolutions to the region, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing Wednesday.
"We are ready to strengthen joint coordination on supporting Central Asian states in ensuring their sovereignty and national development," the diplomat pointed out. "We will not tolerate attempts to carry out color revolutions and external interference in the region’s affairs."
Zakharova pointed out that the US and its allies have intensified typical forms of pressure on Central Asia, which goes against the principle of non-interference in affairs of sovereign states.
"The collective West views interaction with regional countries primarily through the lens of promoting an anti-Russian and now anti-Chinese agenda as well," she added.
