Putin Calls for Dialogue and Shared Responsibility to Prevent Conflict
Dragon Media News Desk
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the risk of continued international conflict remains high as the world undergoes profound change. Addressing the plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on October 1, he described the current period as a new and unprecedented reality and called for dialogue and practical cooperation to safeguard humanity’s future.
The meeting was held under the theme “Responsibility for the Future: Limits of the Possible, or Limitless Possibilities?” Putin said humanity had yet to fully grasp the scale of the challenges it faces. Threats and opportunities are closely intertwined, he said, and the way people live is changing. He called for practical steps to prevent humanity from being pushed to the brink of survival.
Putin said international conflicts were likely to continue in the coming years as profound changes and the opportunities they create fuel ambitions and encourage risk-taking. In the long term, however, he said the world’s movement away from Western hegemony could lead to a more stable, democratic and free multipolar order. He acknowledged that states, communities and individuals would face risks along the way.
Although the United Nations is the world’s most representative international organisation, Putin said its management falls short of the collective and democratic principles envisioned at its founding. He argued that a limited group of Western countries wields disproportionate influence despite representing a global minority. The principle that “might makes right” and claims of exceptionalism, he warned, would lead to no good.
On the war in Ukraine, Putin claimed that Russia had not started the conflict and had been forced to take up arms in self-defence. He said aggressive nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment had been encouraged in Ukraine for years and used against Russia. Making Russia’s strategic defeat a state objective, he said, and oppressing and killing Russian people would not advance peace.
Putin warned that escalating cycles of retaliation could lead humanity towards an irreversible and dangerous point. If all sides want to live and secure a future, he urged them to seek ways to coexist in friendship. “Let us live in friendship and together seek ways to make that happen,” he said.
