Russian President Vladimir Putin has ruled out applying isolation on the economy and has specified that a country like Russia cannot be “encircled” within the framework of the sanctions imposed by the West and allied countries in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.

“We did not have a closed economy. That is, in Soviet times, when we isolated ourselves, we created the so-called iron curtain: we are not going to do this now. We will not step on the same rake,” Putin said, as collected by the TASS news agency.

In a meeting with young businessmen this Thursday, the Russian head of state has indicated that the consolidation of society can be achieved with “a strong economy” while he has indicated his preference that foreign companies do not interfere with national ones, pointing out that Russia is not going to isolate itself.

“Of course, we should not have such benefits for our (foreign) partners that undermine our own production,” Putin explained, also referring to Moscow’s strong points, such as agriculture or the “big data” sector.

Despite this, he has indicated that import substitution “is not a panacea”, although the authorities make an effort to do so. “No matter how hard we try to replace bananas: we will not be able to,” he warned, noting that, with regard to critical sectors, Moscow will have to develop its own skills.

“The response to all the restrictions on our part can and must be unconditional de-bureaucratization in decision-making,” added the Russian president, as reported by the newspaper ‘Rossiskaya Gazeta’.

A few weeks ago, the Minister of Economic Development of Russia, Maxim Reshetniko v, insisted on the theory that the sanctions imposed by a large part of the international community in response to the invasion of Ukraine are destabilizing the world economy.

However, already in April, the Governor of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, warned that the country’s economy is facing a “difficult” period of structural changes due to sanctions, which have especially impacted the financial sector.

Russia conditions meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov conditioned a possible meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the resumption of negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Regarding the meeting between Mr. Zelenskyy and the president of Russia, we have repeatedly explained: Zelenskyy wants to meet for the sake of meeting (…) We see these demands on a daily basis and we start from the fact that above all it is necessary that negotiations be resumed”, he told a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, in Ankara.