The hall was full when President Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) this Friday, June 5. Joining him on the podium was Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, and China’s Vice President, Han Zheng, with Geeta Mohan, International News Editor at the India Today Group, moderating the session. Saudi Arabia was the Guest Country for this SPIEF, with its Minister of Energy, Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, heading their delegation. In the hall were many of the over 20,000 heads of leading companies, businesspeople, and experts from 130 countries attending the forum.
It was clear, as President Hassan stated in her opening address, that the SPIEF is one of the world’s most significant platforms for economic matters.
The world is at a crossroads, Mohan said in opening the session, in which “a new international economic order, a new architecture is now taking shape… The countries represented on the podium today reflect this change…. The era of moralizing, pressure, and intimidation is being called into question and challenged. But at the same time, maintaining independence is not easy. Strategic autonomy comes at a cost. So today’s discussion is not limited to geopolitical issues,” she asserted. “It is devoted to the price of sovereignty…
“Can countries protect their national interests without being forced to align with camps or face sanctions? Will a multipolar world be truly just, or will a single center of power simply be replaced by a number of centers competing with one another? Can BRICS and South-South cooperation move from rhetoric to reality and become a tool for interaction? We are talking about transport corridors for technological and energy cooperation. Can all this give the Global South a real voice? Can an order emerge in which countries do not listen to what they are told, but speak for themselves?”
In the discussion period, President Putin invited Saudi Prince Abdulaziz to speak from the floor. He obliged, speaking of how the partnership which Saudi Arabia and Russia established in 2015 has withstood all the storms and winds that have shaken the world since, including the events of today.
A most interesting exchange also took place between the Russian President and Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. the Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts —the first U.S. government-linked presence at SPIEF in nearly a decade. Cook spoke, quite sincerely, about his love for St. Petersburg, which he has visited for 30 years, studying its culture and architecture, adding that he thought St. Petersburg had been able to fight off “the Fuehrer” not only by its resolve and grit, but because of its culture and music. He conveyed “a big hello from your friend, President Trump,” and reported that he was encouraged by everything that has happened here over the past few days, “and we have a lot of ideas to talk about in our two capitals in the next week. Putin, in turn, asked Cook to send his greetings back to President Trump, and thanked him for his heartfelt comments on St. Petersburg.
