President Putin shared his global revolutionary manifesto on Wednesday while speaking at the plenary session of the “Strong Ideas for a New Time” forum. The Russian leader railed against the unfairness of the Golden Billion dominating International Relations up until this point but confidently predicted that their unipolar hegemony is irreversibly declining following the onset of his country’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine. That racist and neocolonial world order, as he rightly described it, is quickly becoming a relic of the past as genuinely sovereign states are rising to smash the Western elite’s supranational system of controlling other countries by proxy.

The emerging result, President Putin said, is that Africa, Asia, and especially India will no longer be robbed like how they were for centuries already. He also echoed Foreign Minister Lavrov’s conclusion late last month that the West is scared of countries such as his that defend their sovereignty, as this enables them to protect their national models of development, including in the socio-cultural, economic, and political spheres. The Russian leader then ended the relevant part of his speech by noting that “No doubt, responsible, active and nationally minded and nationally oriented civil society is the most important component of sovereignty”, which is the noble goal that his country is striving for.

All of this is crucial to keep in mind since it reflects Russia’s evolving grand strategy in light of the dramatically changed international conditions brought about by the special military operation in Ukraine that it was compelled to commence in order to defend the integrity of its national security red lines. Acknowledging just how counterproductive the US-led West’s response against his country has been with respect to their own objective interests, President Putin seems to have decided that now’s the perfect time to deal a deathblow to their supranational elite in order to finally liberate the rest of the world from their yoke.

China had hitherto informally taken this role upon itself, albeit indirectly and through purely economic means connected to its Belt & Road Initiative’s (BRI) worldwide series of megaprojects, but now Russia is going even further after literally being forced to in order to sustainably uphold the integrity of its national security red lines. Nothing less than truly revolutionizing International Relations by making them genuinely multipolar will suffice for ensuring its objective interests. Whereas China was gradually advancing this end through BRI, which by default placed certain limits on how fast and far it could go, Russia is employing a hybrid toolkit comprised of economic, military, and political means.

Post-Soviet Russia hadn’t ever intended to, but it’s now following in the global revolutionary footsteps of its communist predecessor, which speaks to an intriguing trend connected to this civilization-state’s historical role in International Relations. By virtue of its vast size, cosmopolitan population (which imbues it with limitless creativity), and consistent defense of state sovereignty, Russia has always been at the forefront of shaping global trends, which more often than not resulted in it striving to reform the world system in order to make it more equal, fair, and just. Such is the state of affairs in the present day, where Russia has once again become the world’s leading revolutionary force.