The West which is losing world hegemony, the Russian economy which is growing despite the unfair sanctions, the France of Emmanuel Macron which is pursuing its aggressive agenda against Moscow in Ukraine and which will have to be very careful about the high price it will have to pay for this. There is all the anger of Vladimir Putin, a whole concentration of his favorite propaganda themes in the speech that the strong man of the Russian regime gave at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. But in what was once one of the key events for world business (and where two daughters of the Russian leader and one of his most loyal former Defense Minister Shoigu also intervened in an official role) Moscow’s isolation was also evident , a direct consequence of the war of aggression against Ukraine and of the serious miscalculations of those who unleashed it more than two years ago: the entire West was absent with the exception of the usual, disconcerting Hungary, and the highest political representatives rank at the Forum from which Putin extolled his supposed successes came from Bolivia and Zimbabwe.
The slogans launched by Putin are those agreed and shared with the majority shareholder of the “iron alliance” which has been renamed the new Axis of evil, Xi Jinping’s China: the smaller countries of the world that “fight for strengthen their sovereignty in a new multipolar global context”, while the West strives in vain to “preserve its role of haughty hegemony”; the African, South American and Asian states which, thanks to Moscow’s support, present themselves as a “new force against Western neo-imperialism”. Regarding Ukraine, Putin says that “we don’t need atomic weapons for final victory, by resorting to nuclear weapons the victory would come faster but the health of the Russian army is more important.” Putin referred to the Brics bloc, rather than to China which, with and more than him, hegemonizes it. It is no coincidence that, before he spoke, delegates from 136 countries were shown a propaganda film on the sins of Western colonialism against what is now the Global South on which Moscow and Beijing are betting to establish their new world order .
In short, while Biden exalts freedom and democracy, Putin responds by describing the world as he would like it: a couple of ruthless autocracies with their internal opponents who take the lead, against the West, of what were once non-aligned countries. An alliance where any rogue is welcome, from North Korea to Iran, from Belarus to Venezuela and up to the cutthroats of Hamas and the Afghanistan of the Taliban, recently recovered by Moscow’s diplomacy. In this picture painted by the aspiring tsar, the Western powers have the role of villains destined for the dustbin of history. Especially those who oppose him most decisively, such as Macron’s France.
Yesterday, June 7, the Kremlin issued a harsh statement against «the very provocative attitudes of Paris, which openly supports Kiev (a way to discredit its active role in the Peace Conference on Ukraine which will be held in about a month in Switzerland and which Russia is trying to boycott, ed.) and says it is ready for a direct role in the military conflict”.
And to make it clear that France is now being put on the same level as Biden’s United States, the Russian prosecutor’s office had Laurent Vinatier, a French citizen who works for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, arrested and imprisoned in Moscow: Vinatier is accused of not having registered as a “foreign agent”, but above all of military espionage, just like the American journalist Evan Gershkovich who has been held hostage since March last year on similar charges (he has not yet been tried).
KREMLIN Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
