President Vladimir Putin addressed the ongoing challenges posed by international sanctions and external pressures at the plenary session of the ruling United Russia party on Saturday.
“Russia is developing, the economy is growing. And this is against the backdrop of unprecedented sanctions, blunt interference, and pressure from the ruling elites of certain states,” Putin stated. He emphasized that “no blackmail or attempts from outside to hinder us will ever yield results.”
The United Russia congress is set to alter the party’s program and charter, as well as rotate its High and General Councils.
Russia will achieve all of its short and long-term objectives, Putin added.
Despite Western efforts, Russia remains strongly active in international trade. Some nations in the EU continue buying Russian-sourced energy, openly defying Brussels’ calls to divest, while others do so through intermediaries, according to researchers monitoring supplies. Last month, Bloomberg warned that the latest round of US sanctions, which targeted Russia’s Gazprombank, threaten to cause an energy crisis in Western Europe.
Washington and its allies have imposed a record 22,000 sanctions on Moscow since 2014, when a Western-backed coup in Kiev prompted Crimea to rejoin Russia and led to a conflict between Ukraine and the Donbass republics. The number of measures spiked after the launch of the special military operation in February 2022.
Moscow has long slammed Western sanctions as illegal. It noted on more than one occasion that these have failed to achieve their ultimate goal of destabilizing the Russian economy and isolating the country from the global financial system. Instead, they have backfired on the states that imposed them.
Moscow views the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war to contain Russia. It has for years voiced concerns about NATO’s unchecked expansion towards its border, while regarding the US-led bloc as an existential threat.