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On June 18, 2022, the Chinese media outlet CCTV Video News Agency uploaded to its YouTube channel videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Putin said that Western sanctions are an ineffective and impractical "double-edged sword" because European countries and companies may some day be targeted by them if they "fall out of favor." He said that the West’s sanctions on Russia, led by the United States, have caused an economic crisis throughout the West. In addition, Putin said that the "ruling elites" of "certain Western countries" live in "illusions" and cling to "shadows of the past" by believing the Western domination of the world is eternal. He criticized the West for treating the rest of the world like its backyard and for "rudely" imposing Western ethics and values on other cultures.
Vladimir Putin: "As we know, sanctions have become a double-edged sword in recent years. Sanctions can be applied not just to Russia, but to any country that falls out of favor. Sooner or later, they can be used against EU members and European companies. So far, it has not come to this, but the European politicians have already dealt a serious blow to their own economies. We see an aggravation of social and economic issues in Europe and the U.S. We see increases in the prices of goods, food, electricity and automobile fuel. Living standards of Europeans are going down. Their enterprises are losing competitiveness. Experts estimate that the total EU losses from the sanctions next year could reach as much as 400 billion U.S. dollars. Inflation in certain countries has surpassed 20 percent.
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"Today's problems in soaring goods prices, inflation, food crises, fuel and oil, and energy resources are systemic problems of the economic policies implemented by the current governments of the U.S. and other Western countries. In fact, they are plundering the global market, without consideration of any others. They don't want to consider the interests of other countries at all, including the poorest ones. Russia is satisfying its own domestic needs, but it is still capable of significantly increasing the exports of food and fertilizers. Next season, our grain exports can rise to 50 million tons.
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"It seems as if the ruling elites of certain Western countries are just in such illusions. They choose to ignore obvious things and stubbornly cling to the shadows of the past. For example, they think the domination of the West in global politics and economics is a constant and eternal, but nothing is eternal.
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"Our [Western] colleagues are not simply denying the reality. They are trying to counteract the course of history. They are thinking in terms of the last century and trapped in in their own delusions. They consider everything else to be the periphery, their backyard, they still treat them like a colony, and the peoples living there are considered second-class people, because they consider themselves exceptional. If they are exceptional, then everyone else is second-class. That's why they have the irrepressible desire to punish, economically crush those who stand out from the general ranks, do not want to blindly obey.
"Moreover, they rudely and shamelessly impose their own ethics, views on culture and ideas about history."
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