The main points of Putin's statements at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club: 

Russia never initiates the use of force, but is ready to take all measures to protect itself; 

Ukrainians are being turned into cannon fodder and cynically trained against Russians; 

The crisis of international law is a crisis of growth, the rise of peoples and cultures; 

Russia is still forced to cope with some of the tragic consequences of the USSR's foreign policy since the mid-1980s; 

Putin declared a conflict between the overwhelming majority of the planet's population and a global minority concerned with maintaining its dominance; 

The gap between the "golden billion" and the rest of humanity is fraught with increased migration problems; 

Medicine, food and energy security, and the movement of people must be taken out of the equation of any conflicts; 

The West carried out a "creeping intervention" to humiliate or destroy Russia. Russia is fighting not only for its freedom, but also for universal rights and freedoms, and this is its mission, Putin emphasized.