Isolating Russia is “impossible” despite the “sanctions fever” of the West, its President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, welcoming the “growing role” of Asia to which Moscow is turning more and more.
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While the West wants to cap the price of Russian hydrocarbons to punish Moscow for its offensive in Ukraine, Mr. Putin has also threatened not to deliver a drop of gas and oil if such a measure were taken.
Now undesirable for the West since the launch of its intervention in Ukraine on February 24, Moscow has accelerated a shift towards Asia in recent months in the hope of finding new markets and suppliers there, to replace those lost due to American and European sanctions.
It is in this context that Mr. Putin participated Wednesday in an economic forum of strategic importance for Russia in Vladivostok (Far East), in the presence of several senior Asian officials.
“No matter how much some would like to isolate Russia, it is impossible to do so,” Putin said in a speech with strong anti-Western overtones.
In particular, he hailed in his speech “the growing role” of the Asia-Pacific region in world affairs, in contrast to a West that he depicted as on the decline, undermined in particular by “inflation” .
“Irreversible changes have taken place throughout the system of international relations,” he noted.
“No oil, no gas”
In the midst of the energy war between Moscow and the West, Mr. Putin threatened to stop deliveries in the event of a ceiling in the price of Russian hydrocarbons.
After G7 countries called for a cap on the selling price of Russian oil, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed setting a cap on Moscow’s gas price.
If such a measure is taken, “we will not deliver anything if it is once morest our interests, in this case economic. Neither gas, nor oil, nor coal (…) Nothing” warned Mr. Putin.
At loggerheads with European leaders, Mr. Putin, on the other hand, took advantage of the arrival of Asian officials in Vladivostok to heal his contacts.
He spoke with the head of the Burmese junta Min Aung Hlaing, hailing the “positive” relations between Russia and Burma, as well as with the Prime Minister of Mongolia, Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene.
The Russian president was later to meet with the head of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Li Zhanshu, China’s third-highest official.
Because it is with China that Russia wishes to operate the closest rapprochement, both economic and security.
In parallel with the Vladivostok forum, Moscow has thus carried out large-scale military exercises in the Russian Far East in recent days, in the presence of soldiers from several allied countries, including China.
“Sanction fever”
Beijing, for its part, is currently going through a diplomatic crisis with the United States, in particular since the visit to Taiwan in August by the speaker of the American House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
Trying to portray Russia as part of a united front once morest the West, Putin said sanctions targeting Moscow were a threat to the global economy.
The pandemic “has been replaced by new challenges of a global nature, which threaten the whole world. I want to talk regarding the sanctions fever of the West,” he said.
“The absolute majority of Asia-Pacific states do not accept the destructive logic of sanctions,” Putin said.
The Russian president denounced “the stubborn refusal of Western elites to see the facts” and “the elusive domination of the United States” in the implementation of heavy sanctions once morest Russia.
Faced with “the technological, financial and economic aggression of the West”, the Russian president said he was delighted with the “little by little distance” of the Russian economy from the dollar, the euro and the pound sterling , “unreliable currencies”, in particular the Chinese yuan.
On Tuesday, the Russian gas giant Gazprom, a state-owned company, announced that China would henceforth pay its contracts in rubles and yuan, instead of the dollar.