Putin: Sanctions consolidate society in Russia
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has described the Western sanctions as helpful for the cohesion of Russian society. “The more sanctions were imposed on us, the more slanders there were, the higher the parameter of this general consolidation became,” Putin said at a televised meeting in Pyatigorsk in the North Caucasus on Friday.
Russia continues to sell its foreign exchange earners oil and gas to China and India, for example, and can thus keep its war economy running. The Kremlin also smiled at the West’s plans to restrict the sale of Russian diamonds. The world market is rich in “alternative sales channels,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“As practice shows with other goods, other products, if they are no longer bought there, you just start buying them somewhere else. There are no gaps,” said Peskow. Thanks to imports from third countries, basically everything can still be bought in Russia, albeit sometimes at significantly higher prices.