World faces most dangerous decade since World War II: Putin

In the grips of war, Ukraine faces bleak demographic future

October 29, 2022 00:00:00

A woman from Ukraine stands at the border with her fiance from the United States as she waits to ask for asylum recently — AP

MOSCOW, Oct 28 (Al Jazeera): Russia's president blamed the West for playing a 'dangerous, bloody and dirty' game that was sowing chaos across the world.

The world faces the most dangerous decade since World War II as Western elites scramble to prevent the inevitable crumbling of the global dominance of the United States and its allies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Putin accused the US on Thursday of inciting the conflict in Ukraine, adding the West was playing what he cast as a "dangerous, bloody and dirty" geopolitical game that is sowing chaos across the world.

Ultimately, he said, the West would have to talk to Russia and other major powers about the future of the world.

"The historical period of the West's undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end," Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club, a conference of international policy experts.

"We are standing at a historical frontier: Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War II."

Russia did not consider the West to be an enemy of Russia despite the current phase of confrontation, he added. Moscow "had one message" for the "leading countries of the West and NATO: let's stop being enemies, let's live together".

The White House said Putin's remarks were not new and did not indicate a change in his strategic goals, including in Ukraine.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, triggering the biggest showdown with the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis in the depths of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the US came closest to nuclear war.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed while the West has imposed the most severe sanctions in history on Russia, one of the world's biggest suppliers of natural resources.

Putin said Moscow was ready for talks to end the conflict in Ukraine, but said Kyiv was not prepared to sit down at the negotiating table.

"It's not a question about us, we are ready for negotiations. But the leaders in Kyiv decided not to continue negotiations with Russia," he said. "It is very easy to solve this problem if Washington gives a signal to Kyiv to change its position and solve the problem peacefully."