Putin’s Valdai 2025 – A Multipolar World Will Replace the Current One, Cultures Will Become Unique Again and Live in Coexistence, While Europe’s Militarization Is the Last Attempt to Stop a Change That Is Already Inevitable
The Valdai Club is no longer just a conference hall for geopolitical theories; for Moscow, it is the annual moment when the state explains itself to the world – and the world to itself. This year’s theme, “A Polycentric World: Instructions for Use”, already carries a hint of irony in the title. Putin immediately dismissed the idea of ready-made recipes: in politics, he says, “instructions are asked for and given only so that they won’t be followed.” Instead of a manual, he offers an internal view of where Russia sees itself and which forces are shifting global power centers.
The atmosphere is set by moderator Fyodor Lukyanov, who reminds the audience that this is the 22nd Valdai and that it provides an unfiltered insight into the Russian president’s thinking. Putin praises the club as a place where imposed global agendas aren’t followed – even those shaped by internet noise. It is, he says, a place to **“look beyond the banal,” ask independent questions, and briefly pull back the curtain hiding tomorrow.”
A Radically Changing World
In the opening minutes, Putin sets the tone: the world is undergoing “radical change.” No one can predict the future, but that doesn’t free one from responsibility – quite the opposite: “we must be ready for anything, practically anything.”The stakes are high: responsibility for one’s fate, country, and the emerging global order. Valdai serves as both an inventory of changes and a laboratory for the language used to explain them: a language of balance, patience, and negotiation, not didactic monologue.
Multipolarity, in this view, is not a future project, but an existing reality defining state behavior. Its key features, as Putin outlines, are not only political but civilizational: an increasing role of cultural-historical uniqueness, a growing number of actors who want to act independently, and a rising need for agreements that “satisfy all parties or at least the overwhelming majority.” But with more freedom comes more difficulty in maintaining balance.
This framework has both tactical and strategic functions. Tactically, it explains current crises as symptoms of transition, not exceptions. Strategically, it prepares audiences for a long period of “moving blindly” where only negotiated solutions matter. Valdai, then, becomes a dialogue tool with what Putin calls the “global majority” – states that refuse to align with any bloc and seek pragmatic outcomes. In this mirror, Russia presents itself as a permanent point of balance.
End of Hegemony and the Missed Moment
Putin argues the story of ending hegemony began some 35 years ago, when the Cold War seemed to be ending and true cooperation seemed possible. Russia, he claims, twice signaled readiness for radical rapprochement – in 1954 (USSR)and in 2000 with President Clinton – even suggesting NATO membership. Both times, it was rejected “from the doorstep.” This, he says, was the West’s original mistake: prioritizing geopolitical habits and illusions of victory over rational thinking.
That missed opportunity, he claims, led to predictable outcomes:
- The temptation of absolute power – the U.S. and allies at their historical peak believed they could govern the world from one center. That failed.
- Imposed hierarchy made things comfortable but ultimately bred resistance and cynicism.
- Overstretching the imperial role led to internal destabilization, illustrated by an American anecdote: “We won the world but lost America.”
Multipolarity, then, is not a concept but a natural reaction to a failed unipolar experiment. It’s born from diverse civilizational interests refusing tutelage. Putin critiques Europe’s elite psychology: some teach others, some follow the strong for small gains, and the disobedient are punished. The result? Global problems remain unsolved, and the “world majority” starts speaking with its own voice.
Complexity Replaces Simplicity
We live in an era of complexity, not simple rules. Hence, Putin’s call for balance and agreement – not out of idealism, but out of systemic necessity. Monologues fail, linear solutions don’t work. Multipolarity, he asserts, has already happened, and hegemony ended faster than expected. The dilemma now: accept this reality or keep ignoring it – at the cost of further collapse.
In this multipolar logic:
- The system is open, as nothing is predetermined.
- It’s fast, with changes sometimes happening in a single day.
- It’s more democratic, as more players are relevant and refuse to play by “rules written across the ocean.”
The less dictation there is, the more freedom – but the more freedom, the harder it is to find stability. Hence, Putin calls for a “philosophy of complexity,” comparing it to quantum physics versus classical physics, and says we are entering a renaissance of “high diplomacy” – not power-based negotiation, but discussion with allies, neighbors, and opponents alike.
Institutions, Resistance, and the “World Majority”
He praises new institutions like BRICS+, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and various Eurasian initiatives, emphasizing they don’t rely on hierarchy or have senior/junior partners. They are not “against” anyone, but “for” themselves – for autonomy, trade, and financial mechanisms that are immune to political blackmail.
In this context, he introduces the term “world majority” – countries that reject bloc logic and choose pragmatism over ideology.
He then shifts from theory to practice: how Russia withstood the most comprehensive sanctions regime in modern history. Over 30,000 restrictive measures were imposed to isolate Russia. “And what? Did they succeed?” he asks rhetorically. His answer: no, because:
- Russia showed high resilience, institutionally and socially.
- The global economy, with its interdependencies, couldn’t afford to cut Russia off.
He backs this with examples: Europe rejected Russian energy, but the U.S. keeps buying enriched uranium for its nuclear plants – $750–800 million in the first half of the year alone, expected to exceed $1.2 billion by 2025. Why? “Because it’s profitable.”
Russia’s resilience was boosted by pivoting east, new trade partners, logistical routes, payments in national currencies, and digital systems – reducing Western leverage. The “world majority” – from China and India to Africa and Latin America – rejected the logic of blockade and kept doing what made sense: trade, invest, diversify.
Europe’s Crisis and the Return of the Enemy
Putin portrays Europe’s militarization as a symptom of existential insecurity. Elites, he claims, lost confidence and turned to old therapy: militarization and resurrecting the archetypal enemy – Russia. “Russia returns,” he says, but ordinary Europeans “don’t understand why they must tighten their belts for a threat that seems vague.”
He says the “war at the doorstep” narrative is either something they believe (which is dangerous) or pretend to believe (which is morally dishonest). Either way, the result is heightened tensions and loss of trust in institutions.
He links this to Europe’s internal weaknesses: deindustrialization, debt, social crises, migration tensions, rising violence, and ideological radicalization. Europe, he says, is “slipping to the periphery of global competition.” Energy issues – abandoning Russian gas and oil – raised costs, shut down fertilizer plants, and increased food prices, triggering protests. Militarism, he argues, only externalizes internal problems.
He criticizes German rhetoric about rebuilding the most powerful army in Europe and calls it irrational. Russia will respond “convincingly,” he says, but insists this will be a reaction, not a provocation.
Ukraine and NATO
On Ukraine, Putin frames the war not as a conflict between two countries but as a direct clash with NATO. He claims Western help is all-encompassing – intelligence, training, logistics, and decision-making – and that Russia holds the strategic initiative on the ground.
He shares detailed territorial claims and casualties: 44,700 Ukrainian losses in September alone, half of them permanent. Russia, he says, relies on volunteers, not mass mobilization. Ukraine’s mobilization is unsustainable.
He blames NATO expansion and a refusal to engage in genuine dialogue. If Trump had been president or if there had been better communication with Biden’s team, “it could all have been avoided.” In a multipolar world, he claims, Ukraine would have been handled regionally, not globally.
He thanks the “world majority” – China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, UAE, and even Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia – for staying neutral and “honestly trying to help.”
Global Security and Nuclear Risk
Putin outlines a return to classic diplomacy and arms control as the only way to ensure security in a nonlinear, multipolar world.
He offers a tactical proposal: a one-year freeze of the U.S.–Russia strategic arms treaty to assess new systems like Kinzhal and Avangard. He warns against dragging China into talks while ignoring French and British nuclear stockpiles.
The red line around escalation has been clearly drawn. The potential delivery of “Tomahawk” missiles to Ukraine would be a “qualitatively new phase” that, without the “direct involvement of American experts,” wouldn’t even be operationally feasible. It would cause damage, he admits, but would also prompt an adaptation of Russian air defense; more importantly, it would harm the fragile opening of channels toward Washington. The same applies to the idea of seizing ships with Russian cargo on the open seas: “that is piracy,” and everyone knows how pirates are dealt with – although that doesn’t mean there will be a global naval war tomorrow, the level of risk would suddenly rise.
The nuclear dimension remains the ultimate safeguard. Putin claims that Russia is not seeking a return to the era of nuclear testing, but if “someone else starts,” Moscow “will do the same.” Tactical weapons are a separate matter: he acknowledges that Russia has a larger tactical nuclear arsenal but reminds that American weapons are stationed “all across Europe and in Turkey,” while Russia’s are only placed outside its borders in Belarus.
As an example of “interest-based diplomacy” outside the Euro-Atlantic dossier, he cites the Middle East: a willingness to in principle support Trump’s plan for Gaza, under strict conditions (a time-limited international administration, transfer of authority to local Palestinian structures, and the ultimate goal – two states – in line with UN resolutions from 1948 and 1974). This is not a gesture of sympathy toward an individual, but a signal: solutions are only possible where consensus is gradually built.
Above the specific flashpoints stands architecture. The UN, he says, is “the best we have” – a system full of flaws but irreplaceable. It should be adapted to reflect the real composition of the “world majority” and must not lose sight of the spirit of the anti-fascist coalition from which it was born.
In the conclusion, the rhetoric shifts from a strategic to a civilizational level: all previous topics – geopolitics, energy, security – cannot be understood without a foundation of values. Putin defines this simply: the permanent pillars are culture, history, ethical and religious norms, and the “influence of geography and space.” Attempts at unification – Soviet, and later American-European – failed because they ignored diversity; only what builds on its own tradition and recognizes others’ can be sustainable. Hence, he calls for a “polyphony, a symphony of values” instead of monoculture, convinced that multipolarity can only function as a negotiated agreement among civilizations, not as the dictate of one.
Russia’s uniqueness, he describes without a trace of isolationism: it is a civilization that from the beginning formed as multiethnic and multiconfessional, without “reservations,” with a habit of coexistence and internal arrangements that turn differences into a resource. This includes his favorite definition of identity: “A Russian is someone who loves and serves Russia” (Peter I). In the same spirit, he speaks of the military – “I am a Russian soldier” serves as a common denominator for people of various faiths and ethnicities – and of a society that, despite external propaganda attacks, is consolidating around symbols.
The civilizational horizon is expanded further through the concept of “new Russians” who come from outside. He mentions hundreds and thousands of citizenship applications from Western citizens seeking “safe harbors” for value-based reasons – from resistance to “gender ideology” to the search for greater security.
He goes furthest in stories with emotional charge: American journalist Tara Reade, to whom Russia granted political asylum and citizenship; then 22-year-old American Michael Gloss, who – according to Putin’s description – died as a volunteer on the Russian side while saving a fellow soldier on the front, was posthumously decorated, and his name, along with that of a Russian soldier, was given to a school in Donbas. These images serve the message that values translate across borders, and that “Russian” is first and foremost an ethical, and only secondly an ethnic designation.
The role of culture is also confirmed by a foray into the canon: reading Pushkin as a bridge between historical memory and today’s mobilization – not as revanchism, but as the belief that a people who have endured “tremors” many times have the mental capital to navigate long periods of uncertainty. The same applies to a small episode from Alaska – the presence of Orthodoxy and the Russian language – as a reminder of civilizational threads that outlive political cycles.
In conclusion, the civilizational message serves as a framework for politics: if the world is truly polycentric, peace can only rest on the recognition of differences and calculated diplomacy. In that narrative, Russia does not present itself as a hegemon, but as a “weight” without which the scales do not balance: “it was, is, and will be.” Multipolarity is irreversible; the only question is whether the world will shape it as a symphony – or leave it to cacophony.
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