ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that developing countries have gained an increasingly important role in the global economy, while the share of output by Western countries has shrunk.
In a speech to the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin accused the West of undermining the global economy and finances with unilateral sanctions.
By freezing Russian assets abroad, Western nations eroded trust
in their own currencies, he said.
“The sanctions and blocking of Russia’s sovereign reserves have irreversibly impacted the standing of international currencies, the dollar and the euro,” he said. “Just like Russia, any other country could lose access to their legitimate assets in dollars or euros, as well as Western financial and payment systems.”
He alleged that high state debt had helped undermine global trust in Western institutions.
“The roots of the current global turbulence lie in the transition from a vertical, hierarchical model, which served the interests of a small number of states, to a more complex, distributed and multipolar one,” Putin said. “Russia views global changes not only as a threat but also as immense opportunities. And to capitalize on them, we aim to act swiftly and pragmatically.”
The forum comes at a time when Russia’s economic outlook has clouded amid the conflict in Ukraine. The government raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.
On Thursday, Putin told heads of international media at a question-and-answer session that it was an exaggeration to say Russia's economy was struggling. He noted that his government had taken deliberate steps to cool the economy to keep inflation under control.
Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum, likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to showcase his country’s economic advances and encourage foreign investment. While Western officials and business leaders have stayed away after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought guests from elsewhere to underline its declared goal of promoting a “multipolar world.”
Saudi Arabia sent a large delegation this year, and the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and vice president of China also are present. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is attending for the first time in years.
Also on Thursday, he acknowledged damaging Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and pledged to bolster its defenses.
“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin told the media session in talking about the drone strikes. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”
Hours before the forum opened on Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.
Putin said Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached at his last year's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Putin. Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to wait for the U.S. to return its attention to Ukraine while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war.
In Washington, Trump said it “would be great” if Putin and Zelenskyy meet.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin hadn’t seen the letter yet and repeated his statement that Zelenskyy could come to Moscow if he wants talks, an offer that Zelenskyy pointedly rejected. Putin said last month he doesn’t exclude a meeting in a third country, but only when there is a deal to sign.
Speaking Thursday, Putin again rejected Zelenskyy's push for an immediate ceasefire, arguing that Moscow wants a comprehensive settlement, not a temporary truce.
“Naturally, the Ukrainian side would like us to suspend the advances made by Russian troops," he said. "But it would be better to end the war by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage.”
