MOSCOW, February 12/ Radio Sputnik. The speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Munich in 2007 was revolutionary in terms of the directness of the presentation of current problems, said the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.
In a speech at the Munich Security Conference 15 years ago, Putin criticized US foreign policy and the idea of a unipolar world order.
The head of the Russian state also opposed plans to expand NATO to the east and deploy elements of American missile defense near the Russian borders.
"Indeed, back in 2007, this speech was quite revolutionary in terms of the directness of the presentation of pressing problems and from the point of view of a very coherent logical and concentrated presentation of the worldview of the Russian side on the problems of the architecture of modern security and on those problems, those challenges that we all have to feel more strongly and which we will face in the near future and in the medium term," Peskov told RIA Novosti.
According to him, then the participants of the discussion could not imagine that in 2022 "the world will slide into the vocabulary of the Cold War."
"Back then, in 2007, it was hard to imagine. But, probably, what is happening now once again underlines the rightness of President Putin. He spoke about disarmament issues and, indeed, the problem of short- and medium-range missiles is what we are living with now, and something that has yet to be solved by both the current and, probably, the future generation of diplomats," the presidential spokesman added.
Peskov noted that on the day of the Russian leader's speech he was in Munich and talked a lot with Western journalists to "show them the extremely constructive nature of this speech."
"But everyone took it with hostility, everyone – I mean the collective West - dubbed this speech as the most aggressive thing they have heard in recent times. Although I'm still sure there's nothing aggressive there. This is an absolutely constructive speech, it is a call not to hide your head in the sand like ostriches, but to address those problems that will inevitably grow in full growth in the coming years. But, unfortunately, they did not listen," Dmitry Peskov concluded.
Earlier, Sputnik radio reported why, according to Peskov, the Munich Security Conference is turning into a "club of one opinion."
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