Putin Rejects West’s Approach to Security at SCO Summit
At the SCO summit, Putin argued that true peace requires addressing root causes of the Ukraine crisis, rejecting Western security policies at others’ expense.
Russia rejects any approach in which one country seeks security at the expense of another. That was the message delivered by President Vladimir Putin during a meeting of the Council of Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Putin insisted that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine did not stem from Russian aggression but from what he described as a coup in Kyiv. According to him, the crisis was triggered by a Western-orchestrated power shift that removed political forces opposing Ukraine’s move toward NATO membership.
The Russian leader argued that persistent attempts by Western states to pull Ukraine into the North Atlantic alliance became another decisive factor behind the escalation.
Looking ahead, Putin pointed to what he sees as the only path to sustainable peace: tackling the root causes that pushed the standoff into open military confrontation. In his words, treating the symptoms without eliminating the underlying drivers of the conflict cannot bring long-term stability.