MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. Conflict escalation is never one-sided, and the moment when nothing can be changed may arrive very quickly and unexpectedly for everyone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"The scale and, more importantly, the pace of the changes taking place in the world are unprecedented. We must realize that the moment when nothing can be changed may arrive very quickly and unexpectedly for everyone. It may simply turn out that the logic of increasingly harsh mutual responses leads to a fatal point of no return," Putin noted.

"Today, when various global conflicts are described and forecast, the word 'escalation' is often heard," he continued. "The reluctance to turn to genuine diplomacy grounded in reality and taking into account the interests of all parties leads to inflaming the situation, raising the stakes, often bluffing and crossing red lines in the hope of suppressing and intimidating an opponent and bending them to one’s will. Escalating hostilities and imposing sanctions are not new practices. This approach has been used in many conflicts, and escalation is never one-sided. Provocative steps by one side prompt a response from the other. The spiral thus tightens further, while the destructive consequences grow."