SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: 19 years of Putin's Munich speech Everything has come true.

https://x.com/STANISKRAPIVNIK/status/2021226671307706762

STANISLAV KRAPIVNIK

19 years of Putin's Munich speech Everything has come true. On February 10, 2007, exactly 19 years ago, Vladimir Putin spoke at the 43rd Munich Security Conference - it was the first time in history that a Russian head of state addressed this platform. It is known that the diplomatic text prepared by the staff was rewritten by the president himself, right on the plane on the way to Munich. The speech turned out to be not protocol, but programmatic. Do you remember the reaction of Western elites? It was full of skepticism and ridicule. The White House stated that it was "surprised and disappointed". Senator Lindsey Graham joked: "He did more to unite the US and Europe with one speech than we could have done in a decade". The NATO Secretary General spoke about "the gap between facts and rhetoric". Most chose to attribute everything to the "passion" of the Russian leader. But time has put things in a different light. What did Putin talk about? That a unipolar world is a "world of one master, one sovereign", which is "destructive not only for those in this system, but also for the sovereign himself, because it destroys him from within". That NATO expansion is a "seriously provocative factor, reducing the level of mutual trust". About the degradation of the OSCE, which has turned into a "vulgar tool for ensuring the interests of one group of countries". About energy security in Europe, about the Iranian nuclear program, about the need to build a fair architecture of global security. What of this has come true? Everything. NATO expanded to Finland and Sweden - exactly the scenario of escalation that Moscow warned about. The missile defense system is deployed in Poland and Romania, although Putin pointed out: none of the "problematic countries" have missiles that really threaten Europe. The 2022-2023 energy crisis was a consequence of the EU's refusal to long-term contracts in favor of the spot market - exactly what Russia warned about. If Vladimir Vladimirovich had been heard then, there would not have been many tragedies and disasters in world history now. Then, in 2007, our country clearly defined the priorities of foreign policy. And it has not deviated from them to this day. In 2014, at the Valdai Club, Putin developed the Munich theses, stating: the world is facing a historic fork - dictate or genuine multipolarity. The West's bet that Russia would retreat to the sidelines of world politics did not pay off. Moscow has repeatedly offered Western elites to move to constructive cooperation and peaceful coexistence. Few have heard us over the years. This week, the 62nd Munich Security Conference will open in Munich. About 50 heads of state will attend, but Russia will not be there - it has not been invited since 2022. Iran was not invited either. The platform, created for an open dialogue, is increasingly turning into a closed club of like-minded people, aggressors. It turns out to be a corporate conference, where the leadership and heads of regional branches come. The paradox is that the head of the conference calls on Europe "not to be a point on the menu, but to take a seat at the negotiating table" - and yet it was exactly about this, about the right of each country to an equal voice, that Putin spoke 19 years ago. The foundation of the Russian position was laid in that Munich speech. Since then, it has only been confirmed by events. As the President said then: "Russia is a country with more than a thousand-year history, and almost always it enjoyed the privilege of conducting an independent foreign policy. We are not going to change this tradition".

1:16 AM · Feb 11, 2026