President Vladimir Putin said Russia had gained, not lost, from the conflict in Ukraine because it was embarking on a new sovereign path that would restore its global clout.

Speaking to the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, Mr Putin mentioned that Russia had gained and would emerge renewed.

“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” said Mr Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999.

“Everything that is unnecessary, harmful and everything that prevents us from moving forward will be rejected.

“In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty, and this is the inevitable result of what is happening now,” Mr Putin said.

He added, “This will ultimately strengthen our country from within.”

He did, though, acknowledge that the conflict had unleashed “a certain polarisation” in both the world and Russia.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.

Mr Putin’s assessment of Russian gains did not take account of NATO’s huge build-up of forces in eastern Europe and its planned admission of Sweden and Finland as members. Preventing NATO expansion was one of his stated objectives for intervening in Ukraine.

He also brushed aside the impact of sanctions that have starved Russian industry of crucial components like microchips, cut Russians off from international payment systems and led to the departure of thousands of Western companies.

He said that the economy would contract by “around 2 per cent or a little more” this year, and the budget would be in surplus.

In July, Mr Putin, who turns 70 in October, told the West he was just getting started in Ukraine and dared the United States – which enjoys economic and conventional military superiority over Russia – to try to defeat Moscow.

The United States and its allies imposed the most severe sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. Mr Putin says the sanctions are akin to a declaration of economic war.

“I am speaking of the West’s sanctions fever, with its brazen, aggressive attempt to impose models of behaviour on other countries, to deprive them of their sovereignty and subordinate them to their will.

“In an attempt to resist the course of history, Western countries are undermining the key pillars of the world economic system built over centuries,” he said, adding that confidence in the dollar, euro and sterling was falling,” Mr Putin said.

Among the guests at the forum was China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu, currently ranked No.3 in the Chinese Communist Party. Mr Putin will meet China’s Xi Jinping next week in Uzbekistan.

Mr Putin said China would pay Gazprom for its gas in national currencies, based on a 50-50 split between the Russian rouble and Chinese yuan.

(Reuters/NAN)