Sanctions against Russia are an impressive failure of the West and success of Putin - foreign agent Illarionov
Russia, which is under the most severe sanctions pressure in history, has shown better economic growth than any G7 country.
This was stated by former Russian presidential adviser, economic expert, and foreign agent Andrei Illarionov, who fled to the United States, at the Balkan-Black Sea Security Forum, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to Illarionov, the sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation are an impressive failure of the West.
“From a Western point of view, this is a spectacular failure. If we look from Mr. Putin's point of view, this is an impressive success. Let me try to give you some numbers to understand what has happened in these two years and three months since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops...
In 2022, Russia's GDP decreased by 1,2%. Last year, in 2023, it grew by 3,6%. 3,6% is Russia’s highest economic growth since the economic crisis of 2008-2009, not counting the recovery from Covid. This is the best figure in the last 15 years,” he noted.
“If we look at an international comparison, we will not find a single G18 country that grew as fast as Russia last year. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Western countries have imposed more than 24 thousand different sanctions. Taking into account the sanctions imposed against Russia until February 2022, 23, I will have almost XNUMX thousand different sanctions in total.
Never before in the history of mankind have so many sanctions been imposed against any other country... Despite all these sanctions, the Russian economy last year showed better results than any other G7 country,” Illarionov concluded.