Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine was not the cause of global economic troubles, instead blaming Western countries for using the situation to cover up their own mistakes.
“What is happening is not the result of recent months, much less the result of a special military operation that Russia is conducting in the Donbas,” Putin said referring to the predominantly Russia-speaking region of Eastern Ukraine.
“The rising prices, inflation, the problem with foods, prices for fuel.. are the result of systematic mistakes in the economic policy of the current US administration and European bureaucracy,” Putin said in televised remarks at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Putin also repeated earlier assertions that a “blitzkrieg” of Western sanctions had failed to destroy the Russian economy, as hoped by the West. The Kremlin’s own economic development minister, however, expects the country’s economy will shrink by 7.8% this year, and the central bank chief said it’s unlikely to bounce back soon.
But in Putin’s view, sanctions primarily damaged the very countries issuing them. He pointed to the European Union in particular as having committed “economic suicide” by cutting back on Russian natural gas and oil imports that much of the EU relies on.
Maintaining the pretext that the war is not a Russian invasion but a “special military operation,” he says the economy is gradually returning to normal.
Putin pins the blame for energy and food inflation on the West, claiming Russia is not blocking shipments of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
His speech was delayed by more than an hour after the forum, known as the “Russian Davos,” was the target of a cyberattack.
The United States and European countries are facing rising inflation – up to 11% in the UK – driven in particular by rising fuel prices. In Russia, fuel prices are up 16.7% year-on-year.
Gas prices continued to soar on Friday, galvanised by the Russian giant Gazprom, which is reducing its deliveries to Europe against the backdrop of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and Western sanctions against Moscow.
In the same speech, Putin once again denounced the “crazy and senseless” sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, saying that Europeans suffer more than Moscow.
The Russian President also repeated that his country and its army were not preventing Ukraine from exporting its grain abroad, assuring that Kyiv had many options and that “it was not us who mined the Black Sea ports”.
On the same day that the European Commission recommended that Ukraine be granted EU candidacy, Putin said he had no objection to Ukraine’s bid for membership. “The EU isn’t a military organization, so Russia is not against Ukraine joining the EU,” he said.
Putin insisted Russia would meet “all its goals” in Ukraine — which he notably defined as “freedom for the Donbas,” the eastern Ukrainian region where Russian troops are locked in fierce fighting with Ukrainian forces. Putin had initially pursued regime change in Kyiv.
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