On Sept. 29, the day before the accession ceremony of four regions that were formerly part of Ukraine into Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a meeting of the intelligence chiefs of all of the CIS nations in Moscow. He presented the strategic backdrop to the Nord Stream sabotage and noted that “new and serious challenges are arising.”
“We are seeing the difficult process of the forming of a more just world order,” he said. “This process is accompanied by the well-known problems that lie on the surface. The old unipolar hegemony is inexorably collapsing. This is an objective reality that the West is categorically refusing to accept. We see all the consequences of this. Clinging to the past and trying to pursue a policy of dictates in all areas—from international relations and the economy to culture and sports—the notorious collective West is creating more and more problems and crises. In the process, it is not stopping at anything as it exerts pressure on the countries that choose a sovereign path of development, that do not want to obey it but that want to choose their own path and future independently and freely, and maintain their culture, traditions and values….
“If we want to put up a truly solid barrier against existing and potential threats, the CIS countries must take consistent and coordinated action, continuously strengthening mutual support,” Putin continued. “It is the only way for us to protect our interests on the international scene and drive back any ill-wishers.
“Pursuing their goals, our geopolitical adversaries, our opponents, as we said recently, are ready to expose anyone, everyone, any country to a blow, turning it into a ground zero of a crisis, instigating ‘color revolutions’ and unleashing bloody massacres. We have seen this many times before.
“We also know that the West is devising scenarios for inciting new conflicts in the CIS. But we already have enough of them. Just look at what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, what is happening on the borders of other CIS countries. Indeed, all of this is the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union; this much is understandable. But the risks of destabilization are growing again, including the risks of destabilization in the entire Asia-Pacific region.” (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69458 )
Sergei Naryshkin, the chief of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, added in remarks the next day that the West is going all-out to hold onto its hegemony. “That, of course, is a factor that significantly upsets the international security architecture and ratchets up conflict potential throughout the globe and in individual regions,” he told reporters, according to TASS.
