Liberal Ideology Has Outlived Its Purpose. All Of Us Live In A World Based On Biblical Values: Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that liberalism is now an obsolete ideology. He also added that globalization and the ‘liberal idea’ have failed Europe and the United States (US).

In an interview to Financial Times on Thursday, the Russian president said that values such as multiculturalism, open borders and social tolerance no longer resonate with the majority of the people, and had “outlived their purpose”.

Putin lauded US president Donald Trump for fashioning an election campaign that understood this shift and appealed to voters who had rejected these values.

Putin said that while China has made use of globalisation to pull millions of Chinese out of poverty, in the US, middle class hardly benefited from globalisation but the companies, their managers, shareholders and partners alone exploited the benefits.

Putin addressed a range of questions about the Russia's interventionist role in Syria, on the economic crisis in Venezuela, nuclear proliferation, North Korea, immigration policies in the US and Europe, Russian economy, relations with the UK, and the failure of what he called the“liberal idea” to provide for the people’s well-being.

Putin blamed American unilateralism and the lack of rules underpinning world order for the escalating trade tensions between United States and China.

On Venezuela, Putin insisted that it was a matter for Venezuelans to resolve for themselves and called out the US and its allies for practising modern-day “gunboat diplomacy” and wanting to “humiliate Latin American nations” into accepting leaders imposed from the outside.

Putin also denied the allegation that Russia is directly involved in propping up Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Maduro, claiming that it was yet another instance of Russophobic conspiracy theory propagated by the west.

Putin also justified Moscow’s interventionist role in Syria, in the fall of 2015. He said that it was done after a careful analysis of risks and potential rewards, because Russia could not stand by while an international terrorist organisation (Islamic State, also known as ISIS) grew in its vicinity.

Putin said that several thousand militants from the former Soviet Union who joined IS were “eliminated” in Syria instead, improving Russia’s domestic security as well as helping stabilise the Middle East.

While acknowledging that Nuclear weapons continued to pose a threat to international peace and security, Putin said that the North Korea nuclear crisis was rooted in the “tragedies of Libya and Iraq,” that have “ inspired many countries to ensure their security at all costs.”