Valdai: Putin Demands Security Guarantees for Russia`s Sovereignty

Russian President Vladimir Putin used the platform of the Valdai International Discussion Club to once again publicly convey to the world, and primarily to the United States, his point of view on the reasons that prompted him to follow the path of aggravation with the West, starting on February 24, according to his terminology , "special operation against Ukraine".

The selected thematic modules, key messages and epithets actually became a repetition of the expression of his concern about the fate of Russia, which, in his opinion, the West is trying to make its raw material appendage and reduce to the level of a colony by weakening and isolating the country.

Putin's claims were first publicly recited in his famous Munich speech at a security conference in 2007. Over the years, they took on more and more sharp forms as Russia was dragged into the large-scale financial and economic crises of 2008 and 2014, which was characterized by a response in the form of aggression against Georgia and Ukraine under the pretext of peacekeeping operations.

Putin's current speech is more emotional and lengthier compared to his recent conceptual speeches on the existential threat posed to Russia by the Western world, the instrument of which was the expansion of NATO to the East, at the forefront of which is Ukraine. Putin believes that the invasion of Ukraine prevented the worst-case scenario for Russia and was a step to prevent Ukraine from becoming a military outpost against his country.

In two previous addresses to the world, Putin used a June 9 meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists at VDNH (Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) and the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 17. In them, he more clearly outlined the threats to Russia's sovereignty and substantiated the reasons for Russia's self-isolation and concentration as inevitable in the face of external challenges.

We will not go into the details of those speeches. They are set out in articles devoted to Putin's conceptual addresses, which should be considered as a negotiating agenda, on the basis of which the Russian president invites to start a dialogue with the Western world.

Putin is concerned about Russian sovereignty

Putin announced tectonic changes following the collapse of the unipolar world

There is nothing new in Putin's views and his rationale for his actions. Another thing is what kind of load these ideas and messages carry in the atmosphere of the corresponding historical realities. Putin's Valdai speech was preceded by escalating war in Ukraine through nuclear threats, military mobilization, missile strikes against peaceful Ukrainian infrastructure, and a counter-offensive at the front. Withdrawal from the grain agreement under the pretext of the Ukrainian-British attack on Sevastopol, which was announced after Valdai, was a continuation of the argument of his speech.

It can be stated that the main feature of Putin's speech at Valdai was and remains the Kremlin's attempt to pressure Ukraine to pull the United States into negotiations on guarantees for all types of Russian sovereignty.

In the program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” of the Rossiya-1 TV channel on October 30, Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov answered the question of what could be a platform for negotiations between Vladimir Putin and American leader Joe Biden. This is the desire of the United States to listen to Russia's concerns about security guarantees and "return to the state of December-January."

“The desire of the United States to listen to our concerns, that is, in fact, the desire of the United States to return to the state of December-January and ask the question: what the Russians are offering may not suit us all, but maybe it’s worth it all the same with them sit down at the negotiating table. I mean the draft documents that were submitted to both Brussels and Washington,” Peskov said.

At a big press conference at the end of December last year, Putin stated that the West should not demand guarantees from Russia - it (the West) himself should give them immediately, "and not talk about it for decades." According to him, NATO "cheated" Russia, "just blatantly deceived" by not fulfilling the promise not to move east. The fact that Moscow insists on reliable legal security guarantees that exclude NATO expansion to the east, as well as the deployment of offensive strike weapons in neighboring states, was also discussed by the Russian president with the US president in early December.

In January, several rounds of negotiations took place on Russia's proposals, but the parties failed to agree on key points.

On February 24, Russia launched a "special military operation" in Ukraine.