Zubov and stated that there was a difference between Hitler before 1939 and Hitler after 1939, and after the annexation of Crimea Putin should be compared with "good Hitler". On 24 October 2014, Vladimir Putin made the Valdai speech in which he accused the United States of undermining the world order and predicted that the clash would not be the last to pit Russia and the United States against each other. Putin threatened “sharp increase in the likelihood of a whole set of violent conflicts with either direct or indirect participation by the world's major powers” including those arising from “internal instability in certain countries” “located at the intersections of major states’ geopolitical interests, or on the border of cultural, historical, and economic civilizational continents”, citing the example of Ukraine and warning that this example “will certainly not be the last”. In September 2015, Putin spoke at the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City for the first time in 10 years. In his speech, he urged the formation of a broad anti-terrorist coalition to combat ISIS and blamed the events in Ukraine on "external forces", warned the West against unilateral sanctions, attempts to push Russia from the world market and export of color revolutions. For the first time, he also held a meeting with President Obama to discuss the situation in Syria and Ukraine, but in the outcome of the negotiations and despite the persistence of deep contradictions the experts saw a faint hope for a compromise and the warming of relations between the two countries. In September 2015, Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops in Syria supporting Bashar al-Assad in his war against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Nusra Front and also Syrian opposition militant groups opposed to the Syrian government. Wagner Group, affiliated to Putin's close circle and tacitly coordinated by GRU, was also used in the war against Assad's opponents. Putin supported Nicolás Maduro in Venezuelan presidential crisis and sent Russian troops led by the chief of Staff of the Russian Ground Forces Colonel General to Caracas. On 29 August 2020, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia accepts the election result of Belarusian presidential election and recognizes Alexander Lukashenko as legitimate President of Belarus. Earlier, in mid-August 2020, there were reports that several dozen trucks, identical to the ones used by the National Guard of Russia, without registration plates and any marks, were sighted