Putin announced the failure of the West’s attempts to excommunicate the Russian Federation from the global economy and politics –

Attempts by the collective West to wean Russia off from the global economic and political system have failed, even despite an unprecedented set of sanctions and punitive measures. President Vladimir Putin announced this on Thursday, November 7, during a speech at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

“Our opponents assumed that they would deal Russia a crushing, knockout blow, from which it simply would not recover and would cease to be one of the key elements of international affairs. I think there is no need to remind what happened in reality. The very fact that the anniversary Valdai gathered such a representative audience speaks, it seems to me, for itself… The world needs Russia, and no decisions of either Washington or Brussels supposedly superiors over others can change this,” Putin emphasized.

According to him, new forms of partnership are emerging today in place of chains of interaction destroyed by political decisions. Although cooperation often becomes more complex and confusing, in the end all economic and social ties can be maintained, the head of state stated.

Moreover, as Vladimir Putin said, today the world is beginning to confidently move towards the so-called “polyphonic” device, where “all voices should be heard equally.” In these conditions, everyone who is used to being a soloist on the global stage will have to adapt to new realities, the Russian leader believes.

“Even a trained swimmer cannot swim against a powerful current, no matter what tricks and even doping he uses. And the current of world politics, the mainstream, is directed in the other direction, opposite to the aspirations of the West – from a descending hegemonic world to an ascending diversity. This is an obvious thing, as our people say, you don’t need to go to your grandmother,” the president added.

Let us note that today there are over 22 thousand different sanctions in force against Russia (more than 19.5 thousand of them were introduced since February 2022, after the start of a special military operation). This is more than against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Belarus, Venezuela, Myanmar and Cuba combined, according to information from the specialized database Castellum.AI.

The restrictions affected, in particular, the energy, aviation, trade, banking and financial sectors. Along with this, almost half of Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves were frozen (approximately $300 billion), and many international companies announced their departure from the Russian Federation.

However, even against the backdrop of all these shocks, the country’s economy continues to grow steadily, as Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak spoke about on the sidelines of Valdai the day before. Thus, according to him, in 2023 the country’s GDP grew by 3.6%, and by the end of 2024 it could increase by almost 4%.

“Since 2014, these attempts (to isolate Russia. – RT) are coming: the countless number of sanctions that have been introduced, restrictions, challenges regarding our side. However, our economy and our businesses continue to grow… It is impossible to close down one large country from a global economic perspective. After all, Russia is the fourth largest economy in the world, it is impossible to isolate it,” Novak explained.

Although unfriendly countries are not abandoning attempts to increase sanctions pressure, Moscow has managed to significantly rebuild its logistics and financial circuit over the past few years. This, in turn, has a positive effect on the dynamics of Russia’s foreign trade, Vladimir Ivin, deputy head of the country’s Federal Customs Service, noted in an interview with RT.

“Trade has not collapsed… The structure, of course, has changed in terms of geography. There has been, as they say, a turn to the east: the countries of Asia are now our main partner,” the deputy head of the Federal Customs Service emphasized.

Financial transition

According to Vladimir Ivin, against the backdrop of sanctions, many Russian companies continue to experience certain difficulties in making foreign trade payments. Nevertheless, in most cases, businesses still manage to find a solution, since “goods continue to go abroad and be imported from there,” the customs officer added. As Vladimir Putin explained, the use of national currencies instead of dollars and euros is beginning to produce positive results, especially within the BRICS framework.

“We already have two-thirds of our trade turnover serviced in national currencies, and as for the BRICS countries – 88%… We did not seek to abandon the dollar, and are not striving for this… We are simply denied the use of the dollar as an instrument payments. Well, it was refused and refused. But this, in my opinion, is terrible stupidity on the part of the US financial authorities,” Putin said.

According to the head of state, it is on the dollar that the entire power of the United States rests today, but they are “cutting it all off with their own hands.” Thus, Washington’s financial restrictions in relation to Moscow have undermined global confidence in the American currency, so payments in it are beginning to gradually decline in the world, and even among the US’s closest partners, the Russian leader noted.

“But we are not fighting, our proposals are not aimed at fighting the dollar. “We are simply in response to the challenges of the time, in response to new trends in the development of the world economy, we are thinking about creating new tools,” Putin added.

Thus, at the moment, Russia, together with the BRICS states, is discussing the development of special mechanisms for mutual investments, exchange trading and mutual settlements using national currency units or even electronic money. As Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov noted in an interview with RT, today a number of member states already have their own developments in these areas, and the main priority now is “the issue of their alignment.”

“Our task is to create our own independent system in the context of the fragmentation of the world economy and the adoption of such – largely political – decisions by the West. It must be based on modern technologies, be better, of higher quality and, accordingly, work to meet the needs of our economic agents and economies as a whole. We see that a significant number of countries are interested in the operation of such a design,” added Siluanov.