Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the Eurasian Economic Forum on May 24 together with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov, and Vice Prime Minister of Armenia Mher Grigoryan.
He used the space to outline his viewpoint of global changes.
"We see really deep, fundamental changes taking place on the global stage. More and more states are taking a course towards strengthening national sovereignty, pursuing an independent domestic and foreign policy, and adhering to their own development model," Putin told the participants of the forum.
In March, the Kremlin released an updated foreign policy doctrine. The document revises Russia's international role and sets a priority of facilitating the establishment of a multipolar and equitable system of international relations aimed at ensuring security and equal opportunities for all states.
De-Dollarization Helps Depoliticize World Economy
The Russian president underscored that dramatic changes have also been taking place in the international financial sphere with Russia proving capable of not only adapting to them, but also becoming a leader in this process.
In particular, Putin stressed that Russia is working on reducing the share of currencies of unfriendly countries in mutual settlements and intends to work even more actively with partners around the world to reach a full transition to the use of national currencies.
"We are committed to reducing the share of currencies of unfriendly countries in mutual settlements and intend to work even more actively with partners around the world and the Eurasian Economic Union to reach a full transition to national currencies, to the use of national currencies in mutual settlements," he said.
Previously, the Russian president castigated Washington for de facto weaponizing the dollar in order to coerce other nations into submission. Addressing the forum on Wednesday, Putin expressed confidence that the decentralization of the global financial system will lead to "depoliticization of work in the economic sphere."
This decentralization will make the world less dependent on crises engulfing the countries issuing world reserve currencies and will ensure security of financial settlements and the entire world economy, facilitating its depoliticization, according to the president.
Eurasian Economic Union
The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is making progress regardless of the difficult international conditions. Mutual trade within the union trade is steadily growing: in 2022 it increased by more than 10%.
The Russian President noted that the EEU will make decisions on further integration and energy cooperation during a summit on Thursday.
"Tomorrow, together with the leaders of the five states present here, we will hold a regular meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, make decisions on further deepening integration, focus on ensuring energy and food security, technological and financial independence, accelerating digital transformation, eliminating regulatory and trade barriers, developing transport infrastructure," Putin stated.
He stressed that the GDP of the EEU has decreased only by 1.6%.
"Despite the large-scale crisis in the global economy and trade, considerable geopolitical risks and the uncertainty factor, the total GDP of the Eurasian Economic Union for 2022 decreased, but decreased by 1.6%, and some experts there… predicted a completely different scenario, a scenario of [economic] crash," Putin said.
New Logistic Routes and Technological Sovereignty
The Russian president pointed out that Moscow attaches increasing importance to the creation of new logistics routes. According to him, the urgency of building new sustainable logistics chains and accelerated development of international routes has considerably increased. In particular, Putin referred to the construction of the International North–South Transport Corridor - a multimodal route from St. Petersburg to the port of Mumbai, India.
"Just the other day, we signed an agreement with our Iranian colleagues on laying a section of the Rasht-Astara railway," said the president. "This will make it possible to link Russian ports in the Baltic and northern seas with Iranian ports on the coast of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The construction of a new branch will begin this year."
Putin placed special emphasis on ensuring technological sovereignty as one of the priority tasks of the EEU. According to the president, the countries of the union have sufficient scientific, human and industrial potential to produce high-quality, high-tech products that could be competitive in the global market. Putin underscored that technological independence is, in fact, key to both economic and political independence.
Who is Responsible for Energy Crisis in Europe?
"I don't want to go back to what our opponents have been talking about constantly and a lot - about the energy crisis in Europe. But I want to ask once again: who is to blame for this?" continued Putin.
The Russian president pointed out that energy prices in Europe are currently approaching "economically justified ones." However, the energy price hikes were preceded by Germany's decision to freeze Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in February 2022 as well as the destruction of Nord Stream infrastructure in September 2022.
According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, the Nord Stream sabotage was carried out by US and Norwegian operatives at the request of the Biden administration.
"The Yamal-Europe gas route through Poland was closed by Poland. Did we close it? They did it," Putin continued. "Two lines of the gas pipelines through Ukraine — Ukraine has closed one of them. We did not do it. By the way, we supply gas to Europe via the second line, and Ukraine, despite calling us an aggressor, successfully cashes money for transit."
As per the Russian president, those who are continuing to champion the unipolar world agenda, are shooting in the foot both themselves and "those who are still forced to obey their dictates."