The West made the mistake of ignoring the message of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, columnist Harlan Ullman wrote in an article for The Hill.
The author of the article recalled that the Russian leader insisted on commitment to a multipolar world.
“At the Munich Security Conference, Putin launched an angry tirade against the United States as the “only pole of power” and against NATO expansion. The participants in the meeting were shocked by the vigor of Putin’s attacks, but on the whole they brushed them aside. It was a mistake,” Ulman explained.
The publicist believes that the Russian president considered the reaction of Western leaders to his theses disrespectful.
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“Clearly, Putin decided that the US and NATO were being disrespectful and ignoring his words, which added to his growing resentment at what he saw as their arrogant attitude towards Russia,” Ulman concluded.
February marked 15 years since Vladimir Putin delivered his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference. Then he harshly criticized the foreign policy of the United States and the idea of a unipolar world order, sharply opposed plans for NATO expansion and the deployment of American missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that after the Munich speech there was a chance for the West to understand the futility of a unipolar world, but they did not listen, and this led to a “dangerous line.”
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