Kremlin says US will not be at the centre of ‘new world order’

Kremlin backs US President Joe Biden’s call for a new order but says any new system should not revolve around the US.

Russia has criticised the United States president’s assertion that Washington must be the driving force in a new “world order”, saying such an “American-centric” vision is outdated.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that while he agrees on the need for a “new world order”, he does not believe the US should be at the helm. Any new system should be “free from the concentration of all mechanisms of world governance in the hands of one state”, he said.

Peskov was responding to a speech US President Joe Biden delivered on Friday in which he addressed the US engagement in foreign crises from Ukraine and Taiwan to Israel.

During his remarks, Biden said the “world order” of the past half-century was “running out of steam” and America needed to “unite the world” in a new order to forge peace.

“I think we have a real opportunity to unite the world in a way it hasn’t been in a long time and enhance the prospect of peace, not diminish the prospect of peace,” Biden said.

Peskov responded: “In this part we disagree because the United States, … no matter what world order they talk about, they mean an American-centric world order, that is, a world that revolves around the United States. It won’t be that way anymore.”

Deepening chasm

The clash of words reflects a deepening chasm between the two global superpowers, which are bitterly opposed over Russia’s war in Ukraine and Moscow’s blooming alliances with American archrivals such as Iran and North Korea.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the US has imposed wide-reaching sanctions on Kremlin-linked individuals and entities, and supplied Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in humanitarian, financial and military aid.

Biden in recent remarks has also frequently drawn comparisons between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hamas, the Palestinian group governing the Gaza Strip that the US has designated a “terrorist” organisation, saying they both pose threats to neighbouring democracies.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to annihilate a neighbouring democracy,” Biden said in an Oval Office address on Thursday.