Another chapter in a centuries-long history of “colonialism, diktat and hegemony”: it is thus that, in his 2023 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin characterised once again the US’ and European support for Kyiv. As he repeatedly claimed in the past year, the West’s unwillingness to accept the ongoing “collapse” of its global “hegemony” would allegedly underlie the “hybrid war” that, in his view, the Western “ruling elites” have unleashed to reduce Russia to their own “colony” populated by a “mass of soulless slaves”. According to this highly confrontational narrative, the roots of the Western predatory and racist attitude toward the rest of the world – and especially Russia – are to be traced back as far as the Middle Ages, confirming Putin’s inclination to rewrite history at his whim.
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