Putin: European elites are provoking chaos by trying to drag new countries into it.

      The shortsighted policy of European bureaucracy, accompanied by aggressive rhetoric, leads to further loss of Europe's positions in the global economy and undermines global security. This was stated by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). "We see the shocks that energy markets are experiencing, how tensions are provoked in certain regions, primarily in the Middle East, how the shortsighted policy of European bureaucracy is being implemented, which is accompanied by aggressive rhetoric and leads to further loss of Europe's positions in the global economy, and moreover, undermines regional and global security. In fact, European elites are provoking chaos, into which they are trying to drag more and more countries," Putin said. According to him, these processes did not arise on their own. They are a consequence of the fact that the world is undergoing the largest structural transformation in decades. Moreover, such a transformation is not a transition from one phase of the cycle to another. It is precisely a change in the very paradigm of global development. The President of Russia noted that for decades, the model of global development was built around a limited number of financial centers, technological solutions, insurance and logistics hubs, rating agencies, and reserve currencies. "Such a structure was presented as universal, supposedly suitable for everyone, and most importantly – as supposedly neutral. In reality, however, it was increasingly used as a tool of political pressure and unfair competition, when calculations, technologies, logistics, or even access to information could be turned off at any moment to punish those who decided to act in their own national interests. In essence, it was a specially created system of dependency or resource extraction," Putin emphasized. He added that today the overwhelming majority of countries see this – it has become clear that investment plans and steps to develop business may face serious risks that the external infrastructure they rely on could be used against them. Therefore, states are beginning to develop their own infrastructure.