Putin: Russia seeks to be a world leader but does not aspire to super-power status

MOSCOW. Dec 12 (Interfax) – Russia will be a leader but will not lecture other states on how they should live, President Vladimir Putin said.

“We will aspire to be a leader by protecting international law and insisting upon respect for national sovereignty, independence and uniqueness of peoples,” Putin said in his address presented to the Federal Assembly on Thursday.

“We have always been proud of our country, yet we do not aspire to super-power status, which is understood as a claim to global or regional hegemony. We are not encroaching on anyone’s interests, we are not pushing our patronage on anyone and we are not trying to lecture anyone on how one should live,” he stressed.

Russia is insistent on the protection of its values, in particular, in international relations, Putin said.

“The heat of global military-political, economic and information competition is escalating instead of decreasing. And other centers of influence are closely watching the strengthening of Russia,” the president said.

This is an objective and understandable process for Russia with its great history and culture and “the centuries-old experience of the organic co-existence of various nationalities within one state rather than so-called tolerance, which is neutral and futile,” he said.

“Many countries are reviewing moral norms and erasing national traditions and distinctions between nationalities and cultures. Society is required to demonstrate not only the sensible recognition of everyone’s right to freedom of conscience, political outlook and private life but also the mandatory recognition of the equivalence of good and evil, no matter how odd that may sound. These notions are opposite by their meanings,” Putin remarked.