‘Russia doesn’t meddle in other countries’ business’

Meduza's summary of the speech Putin’s spokesman said will be ‘studied’ for ‘many days’

The West wants to live according to one rule: it wants to act without any rules at all. Solzhenitsyn spoke of the West and how it was blinded by its own superiority even back in 1978. Nothing has changed. The Nazis burned books, and the Western liberals ban Dostoevsky. Meanwhile, Dostoevsky himself wrote that unlimited freedom leads to unlimited despotism. History will put everything in its place; the Western politicians themselves will be canceled and forgotten. 20 years ago, the philosopher [Alexander] Zinoviev said that in order to survive, the West needs all of humanity’s resources. They have no shame. They organized a coup in Ukraine and killed an Iranian general. What the hell is that?

True democracy is when every nation chooses its own path. Traditional values, unlike neoliberal ones, can’t be foisted on someone, because everybody has different traditions. If the West wants to have dozens of genders and gay parades, let them do what they want. We don’t meddle in other people’s business. But the attempts to impose the same template on everyone are doomed. Russia doesn’t consider itself an enemy of the West. [Pan-Slavist ideologue Nikolai] Danilevsky believed that progress isn’t when everybody moves in the same direction. Russia isn’t going to become a hegemon. But the West is destroying local industries in all countries. Just like that, they’ve pocketed our gold reserves. Globalism is a dictate. An unpredictable decade lies ahead. We need to hear everybody out and build a symphony of human civilization.

Before Putin’s October 27 address at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Moscow think tank, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the speech “will no doubt be analyzed, studied, read, and reread for many days to come.”

Cover photo: Sergey Karpukhin / TASS