Sanctions Against Russia Hurt Their Creators - Putin

At a meeting with a group of young businessmen, engineers and scientists in Moscow before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) session, the Russian president referred to the detrimental impact of anti-Russian sanctions on the economies of their enforcers. 

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"For example, they limit the exportation of our fertilizers – and their prices go up, far more than here. They try to limit our energy exports, and their prices go sky-high. They even try using my name to label their inflation, but the reality is we have absolutely nothing to do with it!" Putin said. 

As for charges from the West that Russia is to blame for its economic distress, Putin has said on several occasions that oil and gas supplies, along with fertilizer and grain exports to the West, have been hampered under sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its European allies. 

According to the Russian president, U.S. and EU policies have triggered their record inflation. Rejecting that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has caused such a situation, Putin said in an interview last week that Washington's unbridled money printing is more to blame.

At Thursday's question-and-answer session, Putin said of Western companies' exit from Russia that they have lost the great potential the country has to offer due to the "internal state of these countries, which cannot make sovereign decisions."