President of Russia, Vladimir Putin has blamed the United States on Tuesday of brewing tensions in Asia, while explaining a visit to Taiwan by U.S. House of Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “thoroughly planned provocation.”
During a speech at a Moscow security conference, Putin also mentioned the AUKUS security pact between Australia, Britain and the United States as proof of Western attempts to build a NATO-stylic bloc in the Asia-Pacific region.
His remarks formed part of a narrative that Moscow is energetically pushing as it seeks to justify its war in Ukraine and build new global alliances to counter what Putin called Western hegemony and neo-colonialism.
Meanwhile, governments from Western nations have denounced the full-scale invasion as an imperial land grab and united in imposing a storm of sanctions on Russia. Moscow is currently actively courting countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America with the prospect of closer trade relations, arms sales and a vision of new “multipolar world order.”
Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this month, which China claims as its own, was “not just a trip by a single irresponsible politician, but part of a purposeful, conscious U.S. strategy to destabilize and plant chaos in the region and the world”, Putin added.
“We also see that the joint West is looking to extend its bloc system to the Asia-Pacific region by analogy with NATO in Europe. For this purpose, aggressive military-political alliances are being formed, such as AUKUS and others.”