Putin says Washington fails to respect the interests of other countries

MOSCOW – The United States is destabilizing the global world order by trying to enforce its will, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Friday, warning that the world will face new wars if Washington fails to respect the interests of other countries.

In a speech to political experts in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin pointed to wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria as examples of botched U.S. policies that have led to chaos.

With visible emotion, he said Washington and its allies have been "fighting against the results of its own policy" in those countries.

"They are throwing their might to remove the risks they have created themselves, and they are paying an increasing price," Putin said.

Turning to Ukraine, Putin accused the West of ignoring Russia's legitimate interests in its neighbor and supporting the ouster of Ukraine's former Russian-leaning president.

The Ukrainian crisis has brought Russia-West relations to their lowest point since the Cold War. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed several rounds of crippling sanctions against Moscow over its annexation of Crimea in March and its support for pro-Russian insurgents fighting government troops in eastern Ukraine.

Putin has accused the U.S. of trying to cast Russia as a danger to the rest of the world and forcing its allies to impose sanctions against Moscow over the Ukrainian crisis. Saying the sanctions aimed to push Russia into isolation, he insisted they will not succeed.

The Russian leader warned that the U.S. approach to global affairs has made the world a more dangerous place.

"The probability of a series of acute conflicts with indirect and even direct involvement of major powers has sharply increased," he said. "Ukraine is an example of such conflicts that influence a global balance of forces, and, I think, not the last one."

Putin argued that the interests of Russia and other nations need to be taken into account to stabilize the global situation.

"Russia is not demanding some special, exclusive place in the world," he said. "While respecting interests of others, we simply want our interests to be taken into account too, and our position to be respected."