Putin's Speech: Russia Ready to Protect Its God-Given Sovereignty & Independence, Scholar Says
17:46 GMT 21.02.2023 (Updated: 16:51 GMT 31.07.2023)
© Sputnik / Mikhail Klimentyev
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Sputnik has sat down with Adriel Kasonta, a London-based foreign affairs analyst and former chairman of the International Affairs Committee at the Bow Group think tank, who was one of the first to predict that Russia would overcome Western sanctions. Putin's speech indicated that Russia is on track towards a self-sufficient economy, Kasonta said.
Sputnik: What are your personal impressions of the president's speech?
Adriel Kasonta: My personal impression from President Vladimir Putin's speech is that he proved again that he's a remarkable, I would say, outstanding leader of his people and his country by delivering this well-rounded speech. In my opinion, there was no stone left unturned. He addressed every single aspect of the activity of the country, the social aspect, the spiritual aspect, the military aspect, the technological aspect, the economical aspect. You can name it.
I mean, he's very well known for being a very coherent and concise speaker. But this speech was given at a very important time in history, not only for Russia, but also for the entire world. And by delivering this speech, this is my understanding of the speech, is that President Vladimir Putin made a very clear statement that Russia under his rule doesn't want to fight with Ukraine or any other country, but Russia doesn't want to be subjugated or be used or manipulated by external actors. Perhaps that was an allusion to the United States and its hegemonic appetite.
I think that this is very crucial and very important in this truly globalized world that countries like Russia are saying "no" to intrusions into their internal affairs. Countries like Russia are saying "no" to the attempts by other countries and other people to tell them how they should govern themselves and how their societies should be governed. Because as President Vladimir Putin also said, rightly said during his speech, Russia is a world in itself. It is a distinct civilization that inherited certain values from the past and from its ancestors, and it's willing to live up to the standard set by their ancestors.
And in this particular regard, I will refer to the spiritual undertones of his speech, when he drew a distinction between the Western comprehension of society where, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, “God is dead,” and we know what the Western societies are doing, they literally abandoned religion and are trying to create different social constructs which are going against not only the Bible, not only the Torah, not only the Quran, but constructs that are going against a spiritual or even a religious life. That distinction was made.
And I think that was the main foundation of the speech, saying that “we are not willing to fight anyone without a purpose. But our purpose is to self-preserve ourselves, our culture, and we don't want to embrace what is being set as a standard somewhere else, because we do not agree with this.” And I think that every single human being, every single sovereign nation should have this choice, a God-given choice, to make its own decision about its future and how society and the country should conduct itself as a sovereign entity within international society or the international community framework.
21 February 2023, 13:26 GMT
Sputnik: How will the address be assumed in the West? What kind of reaction do you expect to follow?
Adriel Kasonta: Obviously, there is no doubt that in the West, President Vladimir Putin's words will be misconstrued, this speech will be ridiculed, certain words and speech figures will be taken out of context in order to portray Russia as a terrorist state, a state that is an aggressor, which is not the case, and also to portray Russia as a failing state, to turn this speech against Russia.
Because I wouldn't expect, taking into account the current atmosphere of hostility and Russophobia in the West, to hear anything or read anything objective about Russia. We know that every single assessment, even provided by the so-called Russian experts in the West, is not based on truth or facts. It is based on Western imagination. It is based on the Western need to preserve itself in contrast to “the other.” And in this particular case, “the other,” the foe, the enemy is Russia. The West, in order to sustain its so-called, perceived “unity,” needs a real or an imagined threat that will keep Western countries or the collective West united.
So, I would not expect anything good, anything objective coming from the Western press. I think that this speech will be ridiculed and it will be used against Russia, and it will be used as an excuse to continue fuelling the conflict in Ukraine.
21 February 2023, 09:14 GMT
Sputnik: Putin said that Russia cannot be defeated on the battlefield and warned that if the West supplies long-range weapons to Ukraine, then that will only force Russia to push these weapons even farther from its borders. How do you interpret these remarks?
Adriel Kasonta: We have to bear in mind that Russia is a nuclear power and there's a purpose why many countries around the world have a nuclear arsenal. I mean, what is the purpose of the United States having a nuclear arsenal? What is the reason for Israel having a nuclear arsenal? What is the reason for France having a nuclear arsenal? I mean, the reason for having a nuclear arsenal is to not be defeated on the battlefield.
My concern is, and my guess is, I'm pretty much sure that this will be used as a threat to the West, that President Vladimir Putin threatened the West by saying these words. But let me give you an example. Let us use our imagination. You are a woman and you are returning home after a late premiere in the theater and you happen to live in a not so nice neighborhood and you have pepper spray or a gun. On your way home, someone is starting to follow you and all of a sudden is trying to harm you, or rape you. Before you attack that person, you will say “listen, leave me alone because I have a weapon, I can harm you. So I'm giving you time to reconsider your violent intention, your intention towards me so that you can move away from those bad intentions towards me. But if you will try to harm me, please be assured that I have means to harm you and to prevent you from harming me. This is what any nuclear power would say.”
21 February 2023, 17:29 GMT
And again, let us use our imagination about long-range weapons. Although in the West, EU and NATO executives are saying that providing weapons to Ukraine is not a way of escalating things, let us imagine that you are living a peaceful life with your family, with your children, with your wife, your husband, etc., and you happen to know that someone living next to you is willing to kill your children, to harm your family. And this person is explicitly inviting other people and those other people are bringing different weaponry, different tools so that this person can harm you in a variety of ways. And it is made public that "one day I will harm you." So what would you do? Would you sit on your hands and wait until your whole family is harmed and slaughtered, or would you behave as a head of the family? You would protect your family before someone strikes and harms your children.
The crux of the matter is in the Western lies, when they say that this special military operation was unprovoked. It's not true. We know from several statements from Secretary General of NATO Mr. Stoltenberg that they were arming Ukraine from 2014. We know from the interview of Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande that the Minsk agreements were only a pretext to give time to the regime in Kiev to prepare itself, to train their army, to strike Russia or to start conflict with Russia. I'm not buying it.
I'm not taking this as a valid starting point to start my mathematical exercise by assessing the situation on the ground. If we know that this was pre-prepared by the West, that the writing was on the wall and now they are fuelling Ukraine with new weaponry – now we hear about tanks, we hear about jets, although at the moment Western European countries are quite reluctant to provide these jets, but not out of them being rational actors. It's out of the fact that they do not have jets. In the British press, several army men were quite explicit about the fact that they do not have these jets to provide Ukraine. So it is not a goodwill gesture from the West. It is a simple fact that they are running out of ammunition, they are running out of weaponry, they are running out of tanks, they are running out of jets, because otherwise they would give them jets. They would provide Ukraine with those jets.
20 February 2023, 13:15 GMT
And at the same time, at the Munich Security Conference, the current prime minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. Rishi Sunak, is saying, and he's proud of himself by saying that the UK is willing to be the first country in the West to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles. So if the writing, again, is on the wall and the purpose of a long-range missile is to conduct an attack on the territory of Russia, Russia and every single country which would have been in Russia's place, has every single right to protect itself. My interpretation is that “I don't want to have this conflict, but I will do whatever it takes to preserve, to self-preserve as a country, as a sovereign entity.” Would the United States, or China, or any other country sit on their hands and be perfectly content with the fact that someone is trying to attack it and wouldn't do anything to protect itself?
I mean, there's a Mexican children's game for children where you have this massive mascot hanging out of the wall filled with snacks and sweets. And the person with the blindfold is trying to strike this mascot hanging from the ceiling with a baseball bat, or with a stick to crush it open. They call it a pinata. My understanding is that the West would ideally want Russia to be this particular pinata, this mascot that is hanging from the ceiling, knowing that someone is going to strike it with a bat or a stick and not be willing to somehow retaliate or protect itself from the strike. But real life doesn't work this way. And this will certainly not be the case when it comes to Russia, which is a nuclear power. My interpretation of this remark is that “if you happen not to be aware that we are a big country, well-equipped country when it comes to military means, I'm just trying to remind you that if you are willing to provide a country that is neighboring us with long-range missiles, with an intention to attack our territory, this means war, and this means that we need to push back the threat as far as this as possible.”
Obviously the Western military personnel is well aware of this fact, because every single country in Russia's place would do the same, to push back a threat from its borders. This is how countries maintain their environment secure. But unfortunately, I think that the West is in a certain state of mind, what I would call hubris, that they speak about the fact that every single country has a right to be secure. Every single country can join the NATO alliance, because it's a peaceful organization. But at the same time, they are not taking into consideration that if they would have been in the Russian shoes, they would do exactly the same as Russia is doing. And my greatest concern is that if it were the United States in President Putin's or Russia's shoes, we would already have World War III.
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20 February 2023, 19:14 GMT
Sputnik: Putin declared that Russia had successfully weathered the West's sanctions storm, emphasizing that Russia's GDP had only decreased by 2.1% last year despite unprecedented restrictions. He also declared that the initiators of sanctions were punishing themselves by fueling higher prices at home. What is your assessment of Putin's statements on sanctions? To what extent have sanctions backfired on the West?
Adriel Kasonta: I'm happy to say that I was the first person who prepared a report when with the Bow Group think tank, with several other contributors from the United States, from Ukraine, from Italy, from Poland as well, where I made very clear from the scientific point of view that sanctions will not do any harm to Russia.
Obviously, we can speak about some minor harm being done to the economy because of the simple fact that the country has to adjust to the new reality, but at the same time, the writing was on the wall. And from my report, clearly, Russia started already its shift or pivot to Asia, to the Middle East, to Africa in 2014, because they knew that the West, Europe, the United States – the West is an unreliable partner, that they sooner or later will use their leverage in the relationship with Russia to harm or go against Russia.
And this might be also an interesting point to mention the Nord Stream II and the Nord Stream I pipeline where, according to Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist from the United States, was an inside job within the NATO alliance, the so-called “family.” And so if these allegations are true, we are in a way presented with the corporate terrorism within the alliance where one NATO member – Mr. Hersh named the United States, committed a crime, committed a terrorist attack, a corporate terrorist attack in order to influence another NATO member, which is Germany, to seize any energy relationship with Russia, to harm the people of Germany and also the people of Europe by being forced to buy more expensive LNG from the United States and other parts of the world.
15 February 2023, 11:05 GMT
Because we have to bear in mind that the success of the European Union was based on cheap energy from Russia. The deindustrialization process is in place. It is slowly emerging now during this winter, but the repercussions of this forced decoupling from Russia that was orchestrated in Washington, DC will have long-lasting repercussions on the well-being of the regular citizens of Europe, because they will have to pay much higher prices. And sanctions on Russia are a boomerang. Russia will survive.
The Western concept of international society is based around the thought that international society consists only of Western European countries and the United States. But the world is much larger than the West. And Russia happens to have a good relationship with people in the Middle East, people in Asia, people in Africa, people in Latin America.
So, by using this narrative that the Russian economy will suffer, that the West is waging an economic war, economic blitzkrieg, that Russia's economy will be destroyed, it is a fairy tale to anyone who is familiar with the economy, anyone who is familiar with the facts, anyone who is just briefly reading what is happening with the Russian economy. Russia has not been isolated. Russia was forced to cease its relationship to the detriment of the European people, predominantly.
28 January 2023, 13:38 GMT
But the world is much larger than the West. As we are entering, organically, the multipolar world, the world is much larger than the West, and the world is most certainly larger than the United States. New centers of power are emerging, and I would say that this special military operation comes as a blessing or a Western blunder and push to maintain the unipolar moment or unipolar world order, hegemonic world order, came at a very important time of human history. It allows Russia to position itself in the new world order, in the position where it can create the rules, it can benefit from the relationship with multiple civilizations, multiple nations and countries around the world based not on the history of colonialism, of destruction and death, but based on respectful interactions.
The earthquake in Syria and Turkiye is another good example that Russia, although the West is trying to make it hard for Russia, it's there to be with humanity, to be with the people, to show the real Russia not through words and cheap PR tactics, but it's there to be in flesh and blood and to help other countries to survive. And I think that this is what matters more in the new multipolar world: to be honest, to not look on other countries and nations, civilizations, religious groups from above, but to be a human being. And I think that Russia has time and time again proved that it not only cares about itself, but it cares about humanity. And this is why it matters. I think that these seeds of this humane behavior will bring benefit in the future, also in business and economic terms.
But they are already proving that they are a very good investment. I mean in Africa, when it comes to the case of Mali, Burkina Faso. My father is from Tanzania, so I'm perfectly aware of how African people feel towards Russia, how they [feel] towards the injustices imposed or conducted by the West towards Russia, because they see in Russia themselves. The only difference is that Russia has the means and the will to protect itself, and it's doing this very, very well. And because of this fact, it can get respect around the world, because it's protecting itself and its good name.
13 February 2023, 14:45 GMT
Sputnik: Putin announced that Russia is suspending its participation in the New Start Treaty. What is your reaction to this? How has the Ukraine conflict impacted arms control between Russia and the US?
Adriel Kasonta: When it comes to the New START Treaty, I think that President Putin stated an obvious fact. I mean, I can't imagine any other analyst or sane person saying that it is justified for the United States to make an inspection of Russian stockpiles and Russia's equipment in the nuclear sense. I've been paying attention to what he was saying during his speech. He made it very clear that he is not withdrawing from the New START, but he's suspending. This is the key word that he's suspending, because he wants to check other actors like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, other countries who have the nuclear arsenal and nuclear capacity, what their endgame is, what their real intention is.
It is a very sensible approach to the current situation that someone is suspending the New START Treaty. Vladimir Putin is suspending the participation in this treaty because he's not perfectly sure what the intentions of his Western partners are. And unfortunately, I would say that these intentions are not good. There is no incentive for Russia to be part of this New START Treaty. And it would be insane for any Russian president to allow the Americans, who are waging a proxy war by using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder against Russia, to have access to see what Russia has.
We have to make it clear that this speech was a war speech. And this speech will resonate with sensible actors around the world. We know that Mr. Wang Yi, a chief diplomat in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, is in Russia today. I think this is the most important development, to assure your partner, China, which is also antagonized by the United States, and we know that Taiwan probably, unfortunately, will be the next Ukraine. Taiwan is dubbed as an Asian Ukraine.
I think that the sensible actors in China and in India, and other parts of the world, non-Western world, will make a very sensible assessment of the speech, of what was said by President Vladimir Putin. And they will adjust, because President Putin just laid out everything. As I've mentioned, he left no stone unturned. He made clear what Russia's intentions are in terms of internal and external policy. It is up to us to take it as it is, or to misconstrue his words and paint our own stories to justify our questionable actions.
In my humble opinion, Russia just set a tone for the months and years to come that as a civilization, as a country, as a nation, it wants to be self-sufficient and sovereign, and it will not allow anyone to come to encroach on that God-given right to be a sovereign and respected country.
