Russia's peace initiative for a settlement in Ukraine is urgent, and subsequent negotiations will take place on the worst terms for Kiev, said Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council.
The value of international law, the theft of Russian assets by the West and the injustice of the world order promoted by the United States became the main topics of his speech at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPIEF).
TASS has collected the key statements of the politician.
The modern world order
- The concept of a "rules-based order" promoted by the West is a "surrogate concept" and an "ugly Frankenstein" of international law that serves the purpose of US hegemony.
- International law "does not allow the imposition of norms against the will and consent of States." The nature of the rule-based order is the exact opposite, "it is pure, to put it in Latin, dissonance, therefore coercion."
- Permissiveness and "maintenance of one's own exclusivity " are the "American rules".
- At some point, the United States thought that it had won the Cold War - this is a very serious misconception: "They did not win it. Moreover, they are one step away from losing ."
Special military operation
- Conducting a special military operation complies with international legal norms as a special case of "preventive self- defense ".
- At the same time, the West is involved in the Ukrainian conflict, although it has no legal grounds for this: "Of course, we will have to do everything so that they bear responsibility for this, both moral and, to no lesser extent, legal responsibility."
- The peace initiative announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin is "naturally urgent ." Subsequent negotiations "will already take place on worse terms."
- The settlement of the conflict in Ukraine is "impossible without lifting all sanctions against the Russian Federation."
The sanctions storm
- Sanctions are "a cunning and well-thought-out game by Washington against the interests of Europe." And this has finally begun to be understood in the European Union.
- Unilateral sanctions, with which the United States is trying to ensure world domination, have become "a tool for political coercion of all those who disobey this most notorious rule-based order."
- Even during the Cold War, America behaved much more restrained, so openly did not talk about its interests. The behavior of the United States is "a sober and cold calculation. "The main goal of this sanctions storm is to cause maximum damage to as many people as possible from countries they hate. And, by the way, not only to them, but even to their allies."
- It is necessary to speed up the decision-making process on the development of a register of damage caused to Russia by sanctions.
Alienation of Russian assets
- The legislation of many states, including Western ones, enshrines the absolute immunity of central bank assets.
- "There is no difference, in terms of immunity, between the assets of central banks and income from them. All attempts to prove the opposite are legal arbitrariness."
- The theft of state assets under certain conditions "can be qualified as aggression" and even "become a casus belli (Latin. "a reason for war" - approx. TASS), since in response, the state may have the right to individual and collective self-defense."
- Non-recognition of the immunities of states and officials, as in the case of the issuance of arrest warrants by the ICC against former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov, may also be a step "towards the outbreak of war, and in some situations even world War."
A just world order
- Only countries with sovereignty can build a just world: "Attempts to build a just world with politically independent puppets are doomed to failure."
- Many used to be "trapped in illusions" about the fact that a single world order for all can be built at the expense of preserving national identity, and general norms are universal. As a result, following such principles at the instigation of Western countries turned "into an instrument of dictate and domination, promoting the dominance of one Anglo-Saxon ideology and hypertrophied liberal values."
- Meanwhile, the collective West is going against the legal principles that "he himself verbally proclaimed " in order to curb the development of young nations.
- An example of the imposition of "quasi-legal mechanisms" on developing countries was the "so-called investment arbitration". This tool leads to the possibility of "falling into debt slavery, which may arise when making decisions."
- Nevertheless, the majority of the world's states " continue to strictly adhere to the foundations of international law." And Russia "will contribute to restoring the authority of law in the global dimension."
