Vladimir Putin stated on Monday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) forum that the "agreements" reached with US President Donald Trump at the summit in August pave the way for peace in Ukraine, which he will discuss with leaders participating in the regional summit in China, reports Reuters. He also noted that Russia highly values the efforts and proposals of China and India to resolve the "Ukrainian crisis," not forgetting to remind that the end of hostilities will be "sustainable and long-term" only if the "root causes of the crisis" are eliminated. At the same time, Putin named the West as the source of the conflict this time.
"This crisis did not arise as a result of Russia's attack on Ukraine, but as a result of a state coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West. And then attempts with the help of armed forces to suppress the resistance of the regions of Ukraine and those people in Ukraine who did not accept, did not support this coup," Putin told SCO leaders. "The second reason for the crisis lies in the constant attempts by the West to draw Ukraine into NATO, which, as we have repeatedly emphasized, poses a direct threat to Russia's security."
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged leaders at the regional summit to use their "mega-scale market," stating that the SCO has created a model for a new type of international relations. Xi proposed to partners to "oppose the Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation" and to support multilateral trade systems. According to the agency, this was a clear jab at US President Donald Trump's trade war, which disproportionately affected developing economies such as India, whose exports were subjected to 50-percent tariffs last week.
Amid this trade war by Trump, China and India have overlooked many contradictions. Indian Prime Minister Modi is in China with his first visit in seven years, and both countries declared themselves as partners in development, not rivals, and discussed ways to improve trade ties in the face of global uncertainty due to Trump's trade war.
In addition, it was announced that China will provide 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in aid to SCO member countries this year and another 10 billion yuan in loans to the SCO banking consortium.
Vladimir Putin supported China's aspiration for a new global order in the field of security and economy, which challenges the United States, the agency writes. He noted that within the framework of the SCO, "genuine multilateralism" is being revived, and national currencies are increasingly used in mutual settlements, which "lays the political and socio-economic foundation for the formation of a new system of stability and security in Eurasia." "Such a security system, unlike Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, will truly take into account the interests of a wide range of countries, will be genuinely balanced, and will not allow one country to ensure its security at the expense of others," Reuters quotes Putin.
The SCO started as a group of six Eurasian states and has expanded in recent years to 10 permanent members and 16 participating and observer countries.
Photo: Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik