'Rule-based order' is a manifestation of colonial thinking, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the China Media Corporation, Report informs.
"Have you ever seen those rules? No, you haven't, because no one has agreed on them with anyone. So how can one talk about order based on rules that no one has ever seen? In terms of common sense, it's nonsense. But it is beneficial to those who promote this approach. Because if no one has seen the rules, it only means that those who talk about them are making them up themselves from time to time to their own advantage. That is the colonial approach.
"Because colonial countries have always believed that they are first-rated people. After all, they have always talked about bringing enlightenment to their colonies, that they are civilized people who bring the benefits of civilization to other nations, whom they consider second-rate people. No surprise today's political elite, say, in the United States, talks about its exceptionalism. This is the extension of this colonial mindset, meaning that when they consider themselves exceptional in the United States, it means that other people, all the people in fact, are just some second-rate people. How else could one understand it? Those are mere vestiges of colonial thinking, nothing else," Putin said
According to him, it is extremely important that Ukraine stays outside any blocs: "We said that the security of one group of states cannot be built at the expense of security of other states. Security needs to be the same for everyone."