Russia will emerge stronger, sanctions will rebound on West, warns Putin
India Today
President Vladimir Putin has said that sanctions imposed against Russia would rebound against the West, and Moscow would solve its problems and emerge stronger.
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that sanctions imposed against Russia would rebound against the West, including in the form of higher food and energy prices, and Moscow would solve its problems and emerge stronger.
Putin said there had been no alternative to what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine and that Russia was not a country which could accept compromising its sovereignty for some sort of short-term economic gain.
"These sanctions would have been imposed in any case," Putin told a meeting of the Russian government. "There are some questions, problems and difficulties but in the past we have overcome them and we will overcome them now.
"In the end, this will all lead to an increase in our independence, self-sufficiency and our sovereignty," he told a televised government meeting two weeks after Russian forces invaded neighbouring Ukraine.
His comments were designed to portray Western sanctions as self-defeating and reassure Russians that the country can withstand what Moscow is calling an "economic war" against its banks, businesses and business oligarchs.
Putin said Moscow - a major energy producer that supplies a third of Europe's gas - would continue to meet its contractual obligations even though it has been slammed with comprehensive sanctions including a ban on US purchases of its oil.
"They announced that they are closing the import of Russian oil to the American market. Prices there are high, inflation is unprecedentedly high, has reached historic highs. They are trying to blame the results of their own mistakes on us," he said. "We have absolutely nothing to do with it."
