VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that it had undermined the global economy with what he cast as an futile and aggressive attempt to impose its hegemony, casting the rising powers of Asia as the future.
The United States and its allies imposed the most severe sanctions in modern history on Russia for what Putin casts as a special military operation in Ukraine, a response the Kremlin says is akin to a declaration of war.
Putin, speaking to the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, said the sanctions had replaced the COVID pandemic as the main threat to the global economy.
“I am speaking of the West’s sanctions fever, with its brazen, aggressive attempt to impose models of behavior on other countries, to deprive them of their sovereignty and subordinate them to their will,” Putin said.
Putin said the West was trying to impose its will on the world but that their power was in decline as the crucible of global growth was now in Asia.
“Irreversible and even tectonic changes have taken place throughout international relations,” Putin said. “The role of dynamic, promising countries and regions of the world, primarily the Asia-Pacific region, has significantly increased.”
Among the guests at the forum was China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu, currently ranked No.3 in the Chinese Communist Party.
Putin said that China would pay Gazprom for its gas in national currencies, based on a 50-50 split between the Russian rouble and Chinese yuan.
Putin also said Russia’s economy was coping with what he termed the financial and technological aggression of the West, but acknowledged some difficulties in some industries and regions.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
