Russian President Vladimir Putin told State Duma leaders and party faction heads on Thursday that their country’s special military operation in Ukraine “means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order.” He predicted that it’ll result in international law, state and civilizational sovereignty, and national traditions defining the future. In his words, “The course of history is inexorable, and the collective West’s attempts to impose its new world order on the rest of the world are doomed.”
This isn’t the delusional boasting of a criminal warmonger like the US-led Western Mainstream Media has comically misportrayed him as being since that operation began roughly four and a half months ago, but a reflection of reality as it objectively exists. Nevertheless, it should be taken for granted that some members of the global public might have been partially misled by America’s information warfare campaign over this time, hence the need to explain the wisdom behind his words.
For starters, Russia was compelled by circumstances into commencing its special operation after all diplomatic means failed to result in defending its national security red lines. Ukraine refused to implement the UNSC-endorsed Minsk Accords that are enshrined in international law while the US and NATO both declined any serious discussions about Moscow’s security guarantee requests from late December for restoring the military-strategic state of affairs from the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act.
That was a fatal mistake from the perspective of the US’ already declining unipolar hegemony since it prompted Russia to defend its national security red lines through military means, which in turn accelerated America’s decline. While Washington did indeed reassert its hegemony in a superficial sense over the EU in the months since on an anti-Russian pretext via NATO, this came at the expense of that bloc’s macroeconomic stability that was already very fragile following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unprecedented anti-Russian sanctions that the US pressured the EU to impose in response to Moscow’s special military operation crushed its economy by spiking energy prices, risking food insecurity, and leading to a general state of political uncertainty among its members. Moreover, the US-led NATO proxy war on Russia through Ukraine – which is what Moscow officially considers the conflict to be as reaffirmed by President Putin in his latest speech – has failed to stop the conflict.
To the contrary, all that it’s done is unnecessarily prolong it while Russia continues making slow but steady progress along the eastern and southern fronts. Russia remains in control of approximately one-fifth of Ukraine’s pre-“EuroMaidan” territory, including Crimea and Donbass, which cannot by any indication be considered a “victory” by Kiev and its patrons. Not only that, but Russian forces are solidly entrenched in Southern Ukraine, the regions of which announced their future intention to join Russia.
All the while, the ruble has surprisingly become the strongest currency in the world this year according to CBS News and other Western sources in spite of the unprecedented sanctions, with even Bloomberg acknowledging that the Russian economy is much more resilient than expected. This is markedly different from the economic situations all across the EU’s member states, not to mention America itself, both of which are seriously struggling amidst the economic crisis that they themselves exacerbated.
Far from being isolated like was the West’s initial intent, Russia remains in excellent standing with the vast majority of humanity as proven by the Global South states refusing to sanction it despite considerable pressure upon them to do so. Great Powers like China and India continue trading with Russia in defiance of the US’ illegal sanctions, with India even recently reportedly using the yuan to purchase Russian coal in what arguably marks the beginning of a global economic trend.
As the author predicted late last month in an earlier analysis for CGTN, “The yuan is poised to become the multipolar reserve currency”, which one of Global Times’ financial insider’s extended credence to by revealing to the outlet a week later that more “Financial firms eye yuan payment channel for India-Russia trade”. This game-changing economic and financial dimension of the emerging Multipolar World Order wouldn’t have unfolded at this time had it not been for the West’s counterproductive sanctions.
On that topic, it’s also worth mentioning that the West proved itself unreliable in the economic-financial sense to all of its non-Western partners after seizing approximately $300 billion of Russia’s foreign assets shortly after the start of its special operation. No responsible government anywhere in the world can now place any trust whatsoever in the expectation that the same won’t one day possibly happen to them as punishment for their independent foreign policy, hence the need to diversify from the West.
Altogether, Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine did indeed signal the beginning of the end of the US’ world order, which was already in the process of occurring but was accelerated by that development. This latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict was provoked by the US crossing Russia’s national security red lines in Ukraine in particular and in the region more broadly, which prompted President Putin to take decisive military action to defend his country after all diplomatic means failed.
As the Russian leader himself told leading parliamentary figures on Thursday, “The course of history is inexorable” and the present trajectory is thus impossible to reverse. Instead of responsibly accepting this reality and pragmatically finding a responsible role for itself to play in the emerging Multipolar World Order, the West is recklessly sowing chaos across the planet in a desperate bid to exploit it so as to delay its inevitably declining hegemony. These evil efforts, however, are truly doomed to fail.