Vladimir Putin said on Friday that his country had withstood the toughest of sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe, as the Russian president promised to achieve the goals of his military aggression against Ukraine.
Putin told a business conference in St. Petersburg that “gloomy predictions about the future of the Russian economy have not come true” and that sanctions have hit European business harder, a statement that has not been backed by estimates published so far.
“The economic blitzkrieg. . . “He has never had a chance of success,” he said. “The weapon of sanctions is a double-edged sword… European countries themselves have dealt a severe blow to their own economies.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Western countries imposed sanctions that froze $ 300 billion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, cut off its companies from world markets and disrupted its supply chains.
Putin was adamant that Russia would achieve its military goals, saying it could annex occupied territories or Moscow-backed separatist areas in the eastern Donbass region. “We will defend the interests of the people for whom our boys are fighting, being wounded and dying,” Putin said. “There is no other way. Otherwise, what are the victims for? ”
Moscow-backed separatist authorities in Donbass, whose leaders attended the conference, and officials the Kremlin has appointed to run Ukraine’s southern regions have said they want to become part of Russia. Putin said Russia “will respect every choice it makes.” He emphasized that he saw the entire former Soviet Union as “historic Russia”.
The EU has lost its political sovereignty. His elite dances to someone’s tune, harming their own people.
Although he claims that the United States provoked the war by turning Ukraine into an “anti-Russian bastion”, Putin said Moscow had no objections to Kyiv’s attempts to join the EU because it was not a military alliance. The European Commission on Friday called on Ukraine to become an official candidate to join the bloc.
Putin’s comments that Russia is facing a smaller blow from European economies contradict the predictions of international organizations.
Eurostat, the commission’s statistical office, will not publish growth data for the second quarter, which will cover most of the post-Russian invasion period, until the end of July.
But soaring oil and gas prices have severely lowered estimates. The OECD recently lowered its forecast for euro area enlargement this year from 4.3%, which it had calculated in December, to 2.6% and from 2.5% to 1.6% in 2023.
For Russia, the declines were much steeper. Its economy is expected to shrink by 10% this year, according to the OECD, a 1.9% drop in growth expected in December. The forecast for 2023 was reduced from 1.6% growth to 4.1% contraction.
Putin said Russia had controlled inflation of 17.6% and boasted that it was below the levels in some European countries. This is true only for Estonia and Lithuania, where energy prices have risen since the Baltic states cut off Russian energy supplies after the start of the war. The average for the eurozone is 8.1 percent, less than half of the Russian.
Western central banks have blamed the conflict for escalating inflationary pressures, sparking a sharp rise in energy and food prices. Putin dismissed the claim, saying the West was using the conflict as a lifeline to blame Russia for its own mistakes. Western countries have paid the price for years of extremely loose monetary policy and high levels of government debt, he said.
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He accused the EU, historically Russia’s biggest trading partner, of succumbing to US pressure. “The EU has lost its political sovereignty. His elite dances to someone’s tune, harming their own people. “The real interests of Europeans and European business have been completely ignored and rejected,” Putin said.
As Putin downplayed the economic damage caused by the sanctions, Russian economic officials present were visibly irritated. Herman Gref, chief executive of state lender Sberbank and a longtime trustee of Putin, said the export-oriented economic model is now “poison” because it makes the ruble too strong against the dollar.
Putin also dismissed Western accusations that Russia had exacerbated global food shortages by blocking Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and preventing grain exports.
Instead, he said sanctions have restricted Russia’s own grain exports. “Hunger in the poorest countries will be on the conscience of the US administration and Eurocrats,” Putin said.
Sanctions that wiped out millions of dollars from the wealth of wealthy Russians have confirmed his warnings that Russian oligarchs and leaders are taking too many risks by looting assets in the West. “True success is only possible when you link your future and the future of your children to your homeland,” he said.
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