Putin announced tectonic changes following the collapse of the unipolar world

"Over the past decades, new powerful centers have been formed on the planet and are louder and louder declaring themselves, each of them developing its own political systems and public institutions, implementing its own models of economic growth, and, of course, has the right to protect them, to ensure national sovereignty ... The talk is about  objective processes, about truly revolutionary, tectonic changes in geopolitics, the global economy, the technological sphere, in the entire system of international relations," he said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 17.

Two days before Putin's "tectonic" statement at the SPIEF plenary session, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters that during last year's historic meeting between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in Geneva, the world was already on the verge of tectonic changes.

"The world was not different. The world already felt then, the symptoms of what we are seeing now were visible to the naked eye ... and we were on the verge of tectonic changes that are happening now," Peskov said.

Apparently, the use of the term tectonic change in geopolitics was adopted on the eve of the SPIEF and was supposed to present to the world the drama of the situation in which Russia finds itself.

A month earlier, Putin had used the term tectonic change in relation to the basic, oil,  sphere of the Russian economy.

On May 17, at a meeting on the situation in the oil sector, he spoke about "tectonic" changes in the oil market, noting that it was still impossible to work. He also pointed out that the Russian authorities need to act proactively, benefiting from the "chaotic decisions" of the West.

The Russian leader sees the tectonics of building a new world in the collapse of the unipolar world and the defense of state sovereignty coming to the fore. Of course,  the talk is about  the sovereignty of Russia. For Putin, who attacked Georgia, Ukraine, the sovereignty of other countries has no existential meaning.

He is puzzled by the problem of the sovereignty of Russia, which has found itself in the face of an existential threat.

On June 9, at a meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists at VDNKh on the eve of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin said:

“And in order to claim some kind of leadership - I'm not talking about global leadership, but at least in something - of course, any country, any people, any ethnic group must ensure its sovereignty. Because there are no intermediate components, an intermediate state: either the country is sovereign, or a colony, no matter how the colonies are called.

He named four types of sovereignty as components of the country's global sovereignty: military-political, economic, technological and social.

He believes that if a country and a group of countries are unable to make sovereign decisions, it is already a colony that has no historical prospects and no chance of survival.

That is, Putin, touching on this topic, and given the crisis state of all components of sovereignty, actually made it clear that Russia is on the verge of colonial enslavement by the West. At least that's how he sees the world. Putin openly calls the United States the main catalyst for the geopolitical tectonic fault, which, as he noted, "declared themselves the messengers of God on earth."

Putin sees the main reason for the tectonic explosion in the unipolar world, which the United States approved as a result of the collapse of the USSR, and this unipolar world began to disintegrate due to the fact that America was unable to provide sole leadership in the world.

In his opinion, the active intervention of the United States in the affairs of other countries, the loss of sovereignty by some of them, led to the formation of opposition from the leading countries.

"A year and a half ago, at the Davos Forum, it was emphasized that the era of the unipolar world order is over. It has ended, despite all attempts to preserve it, to conserve it by any means. Changes are a natural course of history, since the civilizational diversity of the planet, the richness of cultures is difficult to combine with political, economic and other Templates do not work here, which are rudely, without alternative, imposed from one center," Putin explained at SPIEF.

Natalya Golubkova, an expert on international relations and national security, in her article "The Transformation of the Role of National Sovereignty in the New Geopolitical Conditions", which was published on the eve of SPIEF, notes that tectonic shifts in the modern geopolitical system lead to the formation of a new attitude of key players towards their national sovereignty , where the emphasis is on national interests, taking into account the existing integration processes.

“The era of the unipolar world order is over, and countries focused on preserving their national sovereignty through the preservation of authentic institutions (electoral, military, religious, etc.), traditional values ​​and putting the state above international ones are becoming new “centers of power”: Russia, China , Iran and the Arab world. The new era of national sovereignties will no doubt require the ability of the leaders of world politics to defend their status on their own, with minimal reliance on international organizations that have demonstrated their weakness.

For the first time, Putin declared the unacceptability of a unipolar world in his famous Munich speech on February 10, 2007: “I believe that for the modern world a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, but even impossible. "The world will not have enough military-political or economic resources. But what is even more important: the model itself is inoperative, since it does not and cannot have the moral and ethical basis of modern civilization."

According to Putin's doctrine, the war in Ukraine is a way of preventing the existential threat posed by tectonic geopolitical changes. Putin sees in the countries framing Russia a direct threat to its sovereignty, since these countries are of geopolitical interest to Russia's global adversaries who seek to include them in their zone of anti-Russian influence.

“Already today, the likelihood of a whole series of acute conflicts, if not with direct, then with indirect participation of major powers, has sharply increased. At the same time, not only traditional interstate contradictions become a risk factor, but also the internal instability of individual states, especially when it comes to countries located at the junction of the geopolitical interests of large states or on the border of cultural, historical, economic, civilizational “continents”. Ukraine, which probably also talked a lot and will talk about it again, is one of the examples of such conflicts that have an impact on the global balance of power, and I think it is far from the last,” Putin said on October 24, 2014 at the final plenary session of the XI meeting of the international discussion club "Valdai".

It follows that today's Putin, more than ever, is ready to attack any country from Russia's zone of influence, which includes the post-Soviet states. Central Asia, the South Caucasus, where the struggle for geopolitical influence is intensifying, can become such zones for the next special operations of the Kremlin. This is especially noticeable in the South Caucasus, where American shuttle diplomacy has noticeably intensified against the backdrop of tying Russia into the war in Ukraine.

While Putin was hosting SPIEF, Karen Donfried, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, made such a visit to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia on June 14-19 “to highlight the US commitment to peace, democracy and prosperity in the South Caucasus region.”

 “Marking 30 years of diplomatic relations with all three countries, Donfried will highlight US support for their sovereignty and independence, as well as the right of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia to forge their own path. It will also underline the readiness of the United States to help establish lasting peace in the South Caucasus, including by supporting the development of political, economic and interpersonal ties throughout the region,” the  statement of the State Department  about Donfried's visit.