MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) - A stable world order is impossible without a strong Russia, President Vladimir Putin said.
"Please note that an enduring, stable world order is impossible without a sovereign, strong Russia," Putin said in a virtual address to participants in the World Russian People's Council meeting.
"It is our country that is at the forefront of shaping a fairer world," he said.
It is fighting for "freedom of both Russia and the entire world. We openly say that the dictatorship of one hegemon is decrepit, as they say, it is out of control and dangerous for those around it. This is already clear to the entire world majority," Putin said.
The ongoing special military operation, "without any exaggeration, has a national liberation character," he said.
"We are defending the security and wellbeing of our entire people, the supreme historical right of Russia to be a strong and independent country, a country civilization. It is our country, the Russian world, that has blocked the path of those who claim world domination, as many times in history before," Putin said.
Speaking of the meeting theme, Putin noted that the Russian world unites everyone who feels spiritual connection to Russia, everyone who deems oneself to be a bearer of the Russian language, history and culture irrespective of nationality and religion.
"But I would like to stress that the Russian world and Russia itself are impossible without Russians as an ethnic group, without the Russian people. This statement does not aspire for supremacy, exclusiveness or selectness, this is just a fact, same as the fact that our constitution clearly formalizes the status of the Russian language as the language of the state-forming people," Putin said.
Only a united, strong, sovereign Russia can guarantee the future and the distinctive development of the Russian and all other peoples who have been populating this country for centuries, he said.