UN General Assembly
2022

Official Russophobia in the West has taken on unprecedented and grotesque dimensions, with some unhesitatingly declaring their intention not just to defeat Russia militarily but to destroy and dismember it — in other words, to wipe off the world map a geopolitical entity that has become too independent. How have Russia’s actions over the past decades actually encroached on its opponents’ interests? Could it be that they cannot forgive the fact that Russia’s position made the military and strategic detente of the 1980s and ’90s possible? Or is it that we voluntarily dissolved the Warsaw Treaty Organization, thereby depriving NATO of its raison d’etre? Or that contrary to positions in London and Paris, we supported German reunification unconditionally? Or withdrew our armed forces from Europe, Asia and Latin America, and recognized the independence of the former Soviet republics? Or believed Western leaders’ promises that they would not expand NATO eastward by an inch, and when the process started, we agreed to basically legitimize it by signing a Founding Act between Russia and NATO? Did we perhaps encroach on the West’s interests when we warned that bringing its military infrastructure closer to our borders was unacceptable?