Russian President Vladimir Putin
© Sputnik/Gavriil GrigorovRussian President Vladimir Putin attends an interview with Rossiya Segodnya International Media Group Director General Dmitry Kiselev at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.
Exploitation of other nations by the so-called "golden billion" is coming to an end, the Russian president has stated.

The era of Western elites being able to exploit other nations and other peoples across the world is coming to an end, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an exclusive interview published by Rossiya 1 and RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

The president stated that over the past few centuries, the so-called "golden billion" has grown accustomed to being able to "fill their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money" as they have been "parasitizing" other peoples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
"But they must understand that the vampire ball is ending," Putin said.
He added that the citizens of the aforementioned regions, which have been continuously exploited by the West over the past 500 years, have started to associate Russia's struggle for sovereignty with "their own aspirations for sovereignty and independent development."



Comment: The above statement will be remembered for the "vampires' ball" comment, but note also the way he sees the global geopolitical battle shaping up: that Russia's efforts to realize full sovereignty are resonating with desire for such in peoples from Latin America to Africa to Asia. Contrast this with the more coarse, bi-polar understanding in Western capitals that the battle revolves around the dichotomy of 'alliance with the West or alliance with China'.


At the same time, Putin noted that Western elites have a very strong desire to "freeze the current situation" and preserve the "unjust state of affairs in international affairs."

Previously, in his keynote address to Russia's Federal Assembly last month, Putin stated that the West, with its "colonial habits" of "igniting national conflicts all over the world," intends to do everything it can to stall Russia's development and turn it, as it did Ukraine, into a dying failed state.
"In place of Russia, they want a dependent, withering, dying space, where they can do whatever they want," he said.
The president followed up on those comments in Wednesday's interview, stating that many Western elites, who have been "blinded by their Russophobia" were "thrilled" when they were able to push Russia to the point where it had to launch its military offensive in Ukraine in order to end the war unleashed by the West in 2014.
"They were even happy, I think because they believed that now they would finish us off using a barrage of sanctions, having practically declared a sanctions war against us, and with the help of Western weapons in the hands of Ukrainian nationalists," said Putin, suggesting that this mindset was behind Western calls to "inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield."
Now, the West appears to have realized that defeating Russia in this way is not only unlikely, but impossible due to the unity of its people, the fundamental foundations and stability of its economy and the growing potential of its military, the president said.

"Those who are smarter" have now come to the conclusion that it is necessary to change their strategy in relation to Russia, Putin surmised.