The entire “architecture of the world order” to come depends on the success of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Director of Foreign Intelligence Sergei Naryshkin has said.
“The fierceness of the confrontation indicates clearly that were talking about much more than the fate of the regime in Kiev. In fact, the architecture of the entire world order is at stake. It’s rather difficult to predict its specific contours based on the current situation, but we can say with certainty that there will be no return to the old,” Naryshkin wrote in an article published in Russia’s National Defence Magazine.
Instead, the spy chief suggested, "the obsolete liberal universalism" of the present can and must "be replaced by a new world order - one that is just and sustainable."
Naryshkin expressed confidence that the Russian military operation in Ukraine would put an end to attempts to turn Ukraine “into a Russophobic puppet state” which builds its identity “on the basis of manic denial and demonization of everything that objectively links it to Russia.”
Naryshkin charged the United States with the use of “the most vile methods” to try to drag out the Russian military operation, up to including the deployment of militants in Ukraine to organize a terrorist underground. Washington, he is convinced, now has the central goal of prolonging the conflict as much as possible, to make it as costly as possible for both Moscow and Kiev.
“NATO, as US ‘strategists’ emphasize, should try to turn Ukraine into ‘a kind of Afghanistan’. To anyone with even the slightest familiarity with history and geography, the total inappropriateness and strategic failure of such an analogy is obvious,” the spy chief wrote. He added that such is only to be expected from Western leaders who confuse Ukrainian and Russian cities or suggest that entire Russian regions are actually part of Ukraine.
The Ukraine crisis serves as evidence that the United States today is an overextended global hegemon, Naryshkin suggested. “A rather interesting situation is emerging, somewhat reminiscent of the history of the late Soviet Union, in which the West, led by the United States, is trying to impose ideological guidelines on the world which it itself does not believe in and whose own actions constantly refute.”
According to the spy chief, the US desire to maintain its role of global hegemon is pushing the country toward dangerous military and political adventurism – something the leaders of countries around the world are following closely.
“All of them, including US allies, are not averse to testing the strength of the weakening hegemon by expanding the boundaries of what is possible in their own foreign and domestic policy,” Naryshkin suggested. As evidence, he pointed to the decision by the vast majority of Asian, African and even Latin American countries not to join the West’s anti-Russian sanctions.
Even allies which up to the present time had been loyal to the US have challenged Washington’s hegemony, Naryshkin wrote, pointing to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent refusal to increase oil production at President Biden's behest, or Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s rebuttal to Western ambassadors demanding that Islamabad condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine by asking whether Pakistan was the West's "slaves."
"From the point of view of US politicians, the leaders of Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates are behaving no less 'impudently'. At the same time, [US elites] bitterly admit that they can no longer afford to speak with partners 'in the spirit of the times of [George W.] Bush. Sic transit gloria mundi – thus passes the glory of the world," Naryshkin wrote.
Ultimately, Naryshkin suggested that "a fundamentally new stage in European and world history is unfolding before our eyes. Its essence lies in the collapse of the unipolar world and a system of international relations based on the right of the strongest, that is, the United States, to destroy other states to prevent even the slightest possibility of their transformation into alternative centers of power. These goals were pursued in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. This was also the goal of Western efforts to draw Ukraine into its sphere of influence. Today, Russia is openly challenging this system by creating a truly multipolar world that has never existed before and from which everyone, even our current adversaries, will benefit in the future."
The Russian spy chief went on to express his conviction that Western elites are using the Ukraine crisis to implement long-standing plans to clamp down on their own middle class.
"Now, thanks to the 'crusade' against Russia announced by the US and its satellites, citizens of the US and the EU countries are facing an unprecedented rise in the price of fuel, electricity and food. Residents of Europe are already being prepared for the prospect of the introduction of rationing cards and the shutdowns of [heating sources], which, it turns out, can easily be compensated 'by wearing sweaters'. And all of this under the pretext of helping the Ukrainian people, even though Ukrainians themselves are neither hot nor cold from these measures," Naryshkin wrote.
"One gets the impression that Western elites are simply using the situation that has developed to implement long-cherished plans for the de facto liquidation of the middle class in the spirit of the well-known scenario proposed by the World Economic Forum in Davos: that by 2030, 'you will own nothing and you'll be happy'," he added.