On September 1, 2025, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO summit in Tianjin, China, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave another speech where he once again cited the 2014 coup d’etat in Kyiv, and long term plans to take Ukraine into NATO, as the causes of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Addressing a group of leaders of SCO member states, such as the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin presented these actions as an open threat to the national security of Russia, highlighting a message which has been a key pillar of the justification by Moscow of its military action in Ukraine since February 2022.
Themed around strengthening multilateral cooperation and countering Western dominance, the summit saw Putin rally support to the Russian position in promoting a multipolar world order.
Putin in his comments added that the crisis arose much due to the coup d etat in Kiev in 2014 that had been instigated by the West. He explained that the incident resulted in the ousting of the political leadership in Ukraine, which was against joining the NATO alliance, and it gave way to pro-western governments to seek closer relationships with the alliance.
The second cause of the crisis is that the West is always trying to pull Ukraine into NATO. This presents a direct threat to the security of Russia, observed Putin, as we have stressed above, according to the Russian state media TASS.
This oratory conforms to long-standing Kremlin arguments that eastward expansion of NATO is not only a breach of post-Cold War guarantees but also an invasion of Russian sphere of influence, a viewpoint that has been reiterated by Russian representatives at multiple levels in the international arena.
Context of the SCO Summit and Putin’s Broader Message
On September 1, 2025, the SCO summit was held where heads of state of member countries such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and others convened and discussed issues of security, economic collaboration, and opposition to unilateralism.
Putin hailed the organization as the foundation of a more fair multipolar world order without Western hegemony and emphasized its contribution to the development of true cooperation among members.
He also cited recent diplomatic contacts, such as his August 15, 2025, visit to U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska, saying that the understanding was achieved there would open the path to peace in Ukraine.
Putin also praised Chinese, Indian, and Turkish mediation activities, which leads to Moscow being willing to find a diplomatic solution but requires NATO expansion to be discussed.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping condemned bullying behavior and cold war mentality, implicitly referring to Western unions such as NATO, and encouraged SCO unity in order to achieve peace and development.
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Indian PM Modi focused on partnership rather than competition with China, and re-established direct negotiations after seven years, but also emphasized India’s strategic independence and demanded peaceful solutions to problems such as Ukraine.
Discussions at the summit were also related to wider geopolitical questions such as the necessity of a new Eurasian security architecture, where Putin makes the SCO an alternative to Western-dominated institutions.
The social media traffic recorded the significance of the summit as the users reported how Putin blamed NATO and the west and how Russia was strategically allied with China and India.
One of the posts called the speech by Putin a repetition of the Kremlin talking points, stating that it was NATO that provoked the conflict. Another pointed out the possibility of SCO disrupting U.S. dominated world order, and Putin agreed with this idea expressed by Xi.
Historical Background: The 2014 Coup and NATO’s Role in Russian Narrative
When Putin cites the 2014 events in Ukraine, sometimes known in the West as the Euromaidan Revolution, he is referring to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in the midst of mass protests against his refusal to sign an association with the European Union.
Moscow has always described this as a coup orchestrated by the West with the support of the U.S. and the EU so as to install a regime that is antagonistic to Russia and to enhance the influence of NATO.
After the revolution, Russia also annexed Crimea and gave encouragement to separatist movements in Donbas, which helped to grow tensions and led to the Minsk agreements claimed by Putin to have been sabotaged by Kyiv and its Western supporters.
The possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO has been a red line to Russia since the 2008 Bucharest Summit where the alliance stated that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members.
Putin has contended that this infringes upon the 1990s agreement with Western leaders that eastward expansion would not occur, and that he considers it an existential threat that would place NATO troops on Russian borders.
During the build-up to the invasion of 2022, Russia would demand legally binding assurances against further enlargement of NATO, which was denied by the alliance, which practices an open-door policy.
With over 500,000 estimated to be killed on each side, the war is in its fourth year and has re-shaped world alliances with the SCO gaining relevance as an alternative to NATO.
Western leaders such as the U.S. President Trump and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have rejected the claims by Putin, saying that the war is attributed to the unjustifiable aggression and invasion of the sovereignty of Ukraine by Russia.
International Reactions and Geopolitical Implications
The words of Putin were received differently.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has threatened that, Russian President Putin is escalation as his first sport, and that the SCO promotes Russian propaganda.
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The speech was framed by the western media including Euronews and The Guardian as defensive, where Putin was trying to receive confirmation by non-Western partners when Europe was isolating him.
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Meanwhile, the Chinese state media responded to the appeal to multipolarity, and Indian commentators observed that Modi was taking a moderate position, demanding dialogue between Russia and Ukraine.
On social networks, the forum on the anti-Western nature of the summit, the posts asking questions about the reasons of Putin and emphasizing the role of NATO. One user pointed out that India is an important swing state in world geopolitics, balancing between Russia and the West.
The summit highlights the changing world dynamics, where the SCO representing more than 40 percent of the world population has established itself as a platform on which to contest U.S.-led institutions.
Analysts opine that the focus Putin placed on NATO may complicate the current peace negotiations particularly with allusions to the Alaska summit, where Trump allegedly discussed possible frameworks to bring the war to an end.
With the conflict continuing, as of late with drone attacks and new territorial control at the cost of human lives, the SCO speech by Putin supports the Russian narrative as it tries to gain wider international approval.
