| Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Friday of diminishing prospects for world peace by imposing a "unilateral diktat" on the rest of the world, Reuters and EFE reported. Putin, reassured that “the Cold War is over” but never “came to peace” with the new terms of international relations. In addition, he shifted blame for the Ukraine crisis onto the West. During a debate in the city of Sochi, Putin said: “The so-called ‘winners’ of the Cold World appear to be taking the situation to an extreme, creating a world solely to its own liking and interests.” The Kremlin chief stressed that the current system of global and regional security is “weakened, segmented, and deformed.” Putin also underscored that the current “unipolar world has becoming unaccommodating, out of reach, and hard to control for the self-proclaimed world leader.” He added that it doesn’t matter who the U.S. considers the “villain” at the moment, whether it’s Iran, China, or Russia. Putin accused the U.S. of trying to “divide the world and forge coalitions,” just as it had done during the Cold War. “Today, it is evident that the United States seeks to revive the old patterns of global domination in a world that has changed. And all for its own political and economic gain,” he said. Putin rejected challenges over the Ukraine crisis. He reiterated his accusations that Western governments helped pro-Western groups stage a coup d'etat in Kiev in February. "Instead of a difficult but, I underline, civilized dialogue they brought about a state coup. They pushed the country into chaos, economic and social collapse, and civil war with huge losses," he said. Source URL |