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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Despite their bravado, the "collective West" has heard the signal from the Russian capital concerning a potential response to the seizure of vessels in the world’s oceans, Vladislav Maslennikov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's European issues department, told Sputnik.

Western Europe’s hostility should push Russia to rethink its identity, strengthen deterrence and develop its Eurasian roots In Russia, many people, driven by lingering Europhilia and habits formed during the second half of the 20th century, when Western Europe enjoyed a period of relative peace following its defeat, continue to look for signs of its ‘recovery’ and ways to restore relations. There are forces within Russia that would advocate overcoming the current hostility and there are decent people in Western Europe, too, even if they are increasingly marginalized. But the causes of this outbreak of desperate Russophobia run deep and cannot easily be remedied and overcoming them may require the complete defeat and dismantling of much of the current European elite. But achieving that goal could come at too high a cost. I shall attempt to analyze the causes of the almost unprecedented hostility towards Russia among the elites of most European countries and offer recommendations for Russian policy towards Western Europe. I have written more than once that Peter the Great’s journey towards the rest of Europe, which initially brought many benefits, including helping

No short-lived oil-price windfall can compensate for damage done by endless war between partners On October 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Manama, where he attended the ninth ministerial meeting of the Russia-Gulf Cooperation Council strategic dialogue and held separate talks with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The following day, he traveled to Tehran to meet with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian. In Manama, discussions centered on de-escalation in the Persian Gulf, maritime security, and Russian proposals for a collective security framework, while bilateral meetings provided an opportunity to clarify individual countries’ positions. Lavrov and his Kuwaiti counterpart stressed the need to reduce tensions quickly and agreed that a political and diplomatic settlement is the only viable way forward. In Tehran, regional affairs featured alongside Russian-Iranian cooperation, with Moscow reaffirming its commitment to economic and investment agreements despite the deteriorating security environment. Diplomacy between the Gulf’s two shores The trip aimed to prevent a new divide between Iran and the Arab mona

Despite the disappointment among voters regarding the state of the economy in the US in recent years, there are observable effects and trends of social improvement. First and foremost, it’s important to note a significant decrease in the level of violent crime. Of course, after President Donald Trump’s controversial firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erica McEntarfer, for publishing weak labor market figures, trust in American statistics has been considerably shaken. Thus, reports of achieving the lowest murder rate in history – 4.3 cases per 100,000 population – may be politically motivated and deliberately boastful. Nevertheless, a noticeable decline in the rate of murders and other violent crimes has indeed occurred in recent years. This can be attributed to increased federal funding and strengthening of the police force, as well as intensified efforts against illegal immigration during the Trump administration. A particularly striking aspect of this is the comparison with Canada, which has been and remains a bastion of liberalism in immigration and domestic policy. Unlike the US, where the level of violent crime is traditionally high,

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio believes the collective West is at a crossroads

As global institutions like the UN, the IMF, and the WTO struggle to contain escalating world crises, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Valdai Discussion Club reflects a deep strategic grasp of major geopolitical trends, political analyst Hassan Hardan told Sputnik.

The Russian president tackled everything from tensions with the West to artificial intelligence during a three-hour-plus marathon Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual keynote address and answered audience questions at the Valdai Discussion Club’s international forum outside Moscow on Thursday. During a more-than-three-hour session moderated by foreign affairs expert and RT contributor Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin spoke on a broad range of topics, including tensions with the West, the Ukraine conflict and artificial intelligence. A world in turmoil and the emergence of a new global balance The world has reached a pivotal moment shaped by profound transformations in global politics, the economy and demographics, as well as the rapid development of technology, including AI, Putin said. “We are confident that, in the long term, as we move away from Western hegemony, the global situation will gradually change for the better – toward a more stable, democratic, and free multipolar international order,” he said. Read more Hegseth announces new AI and drone command The risk of new conflicts Technological and social change is fueling a sense of uncertainty

The Russian president tackled everything from tensions with the West to artificial intelligence during a three-hour-plus marathon Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual keynote address and answered audience questions at the Valdai Discussion Club’s international forum outside Moscow on Thursday. During a more-than-three-hour session moderated by foreign affairs expert and RT contributor Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin spoke on a broad range of topics, including tensions with the West, the Ukraine conflict and artificial intelligence. A world in turmoil and the emergence of a new global balance The world has reached a pivotal moment shaped by profound transformations in global politics, the economy and demographics, as well as the rapid development of technology, including AI, Putin said. “We are confident that, in the long term, as we move away from Western hegemony, the global situation will gradually change for the better – toward a more stable, democratic, and free multipolar international order,” he said. Read more Hegseth announces new AI and drone command The risk of new conflicts Technological and social change is fueling a sense of uncertainty

People from around the world are attending the Valdai Discussion Club to talk about fundamental issues, the University of Kent professor has said The collective West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed, as shown by the international turnout at this year’s Valdai Discussion Club, University of Kent professor emeritus of politics Richard Sakwa has told RT. The 23rd annual session of the Valdai Discussion Club opened outside of Moscow on Monday, bringing together 120 participants from 40 countries. They include representatives from China, Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Türkiye, as well as the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Canada. Panel discussions will run through Thursday, October 1. In an interview with RT on Monday, Sakwa noted that even more participants from Western countries are attending this year’s Valdai session than in recent years. “Russia remains far from isolated” despite Western governments’ efforts to sideline it on the global stage since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, he said. Read more The global system is entering an age of technological entro

People from around the world are attending the Valdai Discussion Club to talk about fundamental issues, the University of Kent professor has said The collective West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed, as shown by the international turnout at this year’s Valdai Discussion Club, University of Kent professor emeritus of politics Richard Sakwa has told RT. The 23rd annual session of the Valdai Discussion Club opened outside of Moscow on Monday, bringing together 120 participants from 40 countries. They include representatives from China, Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Türkiye, as well as the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Canada. Panel discussions will run through Thursday, October 1. In an interview with RT on Monday, Sakwa noted that even more participants from Western countries are attending this year’s Valdai session than in recent years. “Russia remains far from isolated” despite Western governments’ efforts to sideline it on the global stage since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, he said. Read more The global system is entering an age of technological entro

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko noted that that relations between the two countries could hardly improve "unless the South Korean authorities refuse to participate in the collective West’s sanctions policy against Russia"

Xi’s Cairo visit tied trade, the Suez, Africa and Gulf stability to Beijing’s bid to build a post-Western regional order Xi Jinping’s state visit to Egypt, which began on September 1, was his first in a decade and coincided with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. During his meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Xi called on Middle Eastern states to become masters of their own destiny, resist outside interference, and discuss a new regional security architecture. Beijing and Cairo agreed to deepen cooperation on security and counterterrorism, develop projects with data centers, semiconductors, and critical minerals, and expand the use of national currencies in bilateral trade. The relationship is moving beyond conventional trade and infrastructure into sectors that will shape economic sovereignty for decades. The agenda fell within China’s familiar formula – development, state sovereignty, and fairer global governance. Beijing increasingly presents itself as a voice for the global majority and the Global South, where many countries associate today’s instability with Western hegemony, US sanctions, and decad

From Russia, India and China to the wider Global South, BRICS offers a peaceful way to reshape global governance still dominated by the West In a thought-provoking recent column, “ The Age of Endarkenment ,” the distinguished Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista examines the relative political decline of the collective West and the inability of its leading powers to respond constructively to the most complex challenges of our time. He raises an important question, asking what can other leading nations, including his native Brazil, do in response to the increasingly destructive behavior of the architects of the modern international order? One answer is greater cooperation among themselves, but this requires understanding what can bind together states with very different cultures and interests, and what gives their joint initiatives a genuine competitive advantages and the most important example is undoubtedly BRICS. The age of global empires is over, despite attempts by certain great powers to present themselves as the sole source of authority in international affairs, as the modern world is simply too complex for even its most powerful states to determine global d

From Russia, India and China to the wider Global South, BRICS offers a peaceful way to reshape global governance still dominated by the West In a thought-provoking recent column, “ The Age of Endarkenment ,” the distinguished Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista examines the relative political decline of the collective West and the inability of its leading powers to respond constructively to the most complex challenges of our time. He raises an important question, asking what can other leading nations, including his native Brazil, do in response to the increasingly destructive behavior of the architects of the modern international order? One answer is greater cooperation among themselves, but this requires understanding what can bind together states with very different cultures and interests, and what gives their joint initiatives a genuine competitive advantages and the most important example is undoubtedly BRICS. The age of global empires is over, despite attempts by certain great powers to present themselves as the sole source of authority in international affairs, as the modern world is simply too complex for even its most powerful states to determine global d

Kiev has descended into complete repression at home and “outright terror” against Russian civilians, the UN envoy has said Ukraine has been transformed into a “Zelensky concentration camp” with Western assistance, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said, accusing Kiev of suppressing dissent at home and increasingly resorting to attacks on civilians in Russia. Nebenzia made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence. The session was requested by the council’s five European members – Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, and the UK – which reiterated their full support for Kiev. The Russian diplomat questioned whether Ukraine has anything to celebrate, arguing that successive governments have run the country “into the ground” and that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accelerated the process. “With the most active involvement of the countries of the collective West, which claim to be ‘civilized’ and ‘democratic,’ Ukraine has morphed into a ‘Zelensky concentration camp,’ where any dissent or oppositio

Kiev has descended into complete repression at home and “outright terror” against Russian civilians, the UN envoy has said Ukraine has been transformed into a “Zelensky concentration camp” with Western assistance, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said, accusing Kiev of suppressing dissent at home and increasingly resorting to attacks on civilians in Russia. Nebenzia made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence. The session was requested by the council’s five European members – Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, and the UK – which reiterated their full support for Kiev. The Russian diplomat questioned whether Ukraine has anything to celebrate, arguing that successive governments have run the country “into the ground” and that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accelerated the process. “With the most active involvement of the countries of the collective West, which claim to be ‘civilized’ and ‘democratic,’ Ukraine has morphed into a ‘Zelensky concentration camp,’ where any dissent or oppositio

The old transatlantic order is weakening, but Moscow cannot afford to wait for Western divisions to solve the Ukraine conflict Western Europe hasn’t stopped fearing Russia. In fact, it fears it so much that it is prepared to accept the very idea of a major war. Why is the West no longer united? Why is the US distancing itself from the Ukraine crisis? And why can Moscow not wait for the EU’s internal contradictions to resolve its problems? Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Politics, spoke about these issues in an interview with Ukraina.ru. Bloomberg recently reported on a closed-door meeting in Vienna involving former senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, and Russia, held in July to discuss the terms of a potential settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. These weren’t official government negotiations, but informal track-two consultations. Anna Cherkasova: Mr. Lukyanov, what does the concept of the collective West mean to you? Fyodor Lukyanov : For me, it means exactly what we mean by it today, because it’s our term. In foreign sources, English-speaking politi

As the US steps back from Europe, the Russian threat offers Brussels a unifying cause – and Ukraine the army needed to sustain confrontation The term 'collective West', widely used in Russia, is rarely employed in the West itself, except perhaps when discussing Russian political thinking. What’s commonly heard, however, is the long-running debate over what the West actually is and that discussion has continued in philosophy and politics since at least the 18th century. The concept has never had a fixed definition, even among those who are supposedly part of it so instead, the West has usually been defined in opposition to something else. At different times, that “other” has been Byzantium and Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world, or even Germany, which was once regarded by some as alien to the European spirit. Russia has frequently occupied the same role, albeit there have been periods when Russia was considered part of the Western community, but this generally happened when Western Europe’s great powers needed the support of a major ally against one of their own rivals, and once that purpose had been served, Russia was once again trea

As the US steps back from Europe, the Russian threat offers Brussels a unifying cause – and Ukraine the army needed to sustain confrontation The term 'collective West', widely used in Russia, is rarely employed in the West itself, except perhaps when discussing Russian political thinking. What’s commonly heard, however, is the long-running debate over what the West actually is and that discussion has continued in philosophy and politics since at least the 18th century. The concept has never had a fixed definition, even among those who are supposedly part of it so instead, the West has usually been defined in opposition to something else. At different times, that “other” has been Byzantium and Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world, or even Germany, which was once regarded by some as alien to the European spirit. Russia has frequently occupied the same role, albeit there have been periods when Russia was considered part of the Western community, but this generally happened when Western Europe’s great powers needed the support of a major ally against one of their own rivals, and once that purpose had been served, Russia was once again trea

Konstantin Basyuk noted that international politics had long ceased to be a "chess game between two players"

The collective West is attempting to use the South Caucasus as an arena for geopolitical confrontation

Kiev has stepped up drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and civilian targets amid continued setbacks on the battlefield Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory will be met with significantly stronger retaliation. Putin made the remarks on Monday while addressing the ‘All for Victory!’ forum organized by the All-Russian People’s Front, where he discussed the Ukraine conflict and Moscow’s response to Western backing for Kiev. “Our response will always mirror any strike on Russian territory. We will respond in kind – only several times more powerfully,” Putin said. “The enemy will feel it. They already do, I hope. And they will feel it even more in the future.” Russia’s strength lies in its ability to overcome “every difficulty and every challenge,” while the “Russophobic” part of the collective West continues to wage a campaign against the country, Putin said. Despite the pressure, Russia is “developing its economy, strengthening its financial system, modernizing its Armed Forces and expanding its defense industry,” he said, ad

The Russophobic factions within the so-called collective West are fighting Russia, but the country is forging ahead with remarkable progress, the Russian leader said

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that "the collective West's media outlets still appear not to have noticed this tragedy, despite the fact that it was deliberate"

Seeking unimpeded access to logistics and resources, the countries of the collective West are making targeted attempts to shift the balance of power in this region of the World Ocean in their favor, Nikolay Patrushev noted

According to Leonid Slutsky, British citizens are weary of the consequences of "Anglo-Saxon hegemonic ambitions," citing the "migration crisis and the general decline in living standards due to endless financial injections into the proxy war in Ukraine"

This week’s summits exposed a world split between Western dysfunction and the Global Majority’s pragmatic rise Today, it is difficult to find two more contrasting approaches to diplomacy as a tool of interstate engagement than those practiced by the countries of the “global minority” and the states of the “global majority.” While some nations, despite being located in immediate geographic proximity to one another, remain unable to reach a compromise on even the most pressing issues of our time, others – separated by thousands of miles – continue to expand the full spectrum of their bilateral and multilateral ties, helping to ease international tensions and advancing similar approaches to solving the world’s most critical challenges. These two realities, as different as night and day, were brought into especially sharp focus by two major summits held this week: the G7 meeting in Evian, France, and the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Russia-ASEAN strategic partnership in Kazan. A diplomatic crisis for the collective West Known for its spa resorts, which gained worldwide fame thanks to the bottled water brand that bears its name, th

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Representatives of the collective West as well as Ukraine share blame for the tragedy involving Belarusian schoolchildren, Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Thursday.

Taalatbek Masadykov noted that the existing international security architecture had been destabilized

In the context of the sanctions war unleashed by the collective West, Russia and Belarus are "taking joint steps to counter illegal restrictions and strengthen financial and technological sovereignty."

No one will be able to force a strategic defeat on Moscow in Ukraine, the Russian president has said Russia is practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with service members in the Kremlin on Friday. The meeting coincided with Russia Day, which commemorates the country’s declaration of sovereignty on June 12, 1990 and the beginning of its post-Soviet statehood. “Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly,” Putin said, noting that the Ukraine conflict has become “exceedingly high-tech.” The NATO nations are all, without exception, ramping up efforts to do all they can to orchestrate actions against Russia, he added. Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, Putin stressed. It was they who carried out the coup d'etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes. Read more Four civilians killed by Ukrainian attacks on Russia The entirety of Europe had previously united against Russia, both during Napoleon’s invasion an