Valdai Discussion Club meeting

The theme of the meeting is Lasting Peace on What Basis? Common Security and Equal Opportunities for Development in the 21^st Century.

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Research Director of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai International Discussion Club Fyodor Lukyanov: Ladies and gentlemen, guests, friends, participants of the Valdai Discussion Club meeting!

We are starting the plenary session of the 21^st annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. We have spent four wonderful days full of discussions and now we can try to sum up some of the results.

I would like to invite President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the stage.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, friends,

I am delighted to welcome all of you to our traditional meeting. First of all, I would like to thank you for taking part in acute and substantive discussions of the Valdai Club. We are meeting on November 7, which is a significant date both for Russia and the entire world. The Russian Revolution of 1917, like the Dutch, English and great French Revolutions in their time, all became, to a certain extent, milestones in the development path of humanity and largely determined the course of history, the nature of politics, diplomacy, economies, and social structure.

We are also destined to live in an era of fundamental, even revolutionary changes, and not only to comprehend but also to take a direct part in the most complex processes of the first quarter of the 21^st century. The Valdai Club is already 20 years old, almost the same age as our century. By the way, in cases like this they often say that time flies by quickly, but not in this case. These two decades were more than filled with the most important, sometimes dramatic events of truly historical scale. We are witnessing the formation of a completely new world order, nothing like we had in the past, such as the Westphalian or Yalta systems.

To be continued.