Putin: due to the exhaustion of the sanctions potential, the West may resort to sabotage

The West may resort to sabotage against Russia and its projects against the backdrop of the exhaustion of “the potential for sanctions aggression,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting on economic issues.

“In conditions when the potential for sanctions aggression against us has actually been exhausted, sabotage, simply natural sabotage or acts of sabotage at the most important global infrastructure facilities can be used,” he said, mentioning the incident with the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

As a final example, the head of state cited the case of damage to the Balticconnector pipeline between Estonia and Finland, which occurred on October 8. Western countries, he noted, against the backdrop of this incident, made deliberately false accusations against Russia. According to the president, the line “itself is nothing, the volumes there are insignificant.” “Nevertheless, as a fact on which something can somehow be caught in order to cause damage to us,” Putin added.

It is important, as the president noted, to calculate such risks in advance and respond to them proactively in order to ensure “confident, stable operation of our enterprises, companies, workforces, reliability of our foreign trade relations and logistics routes.” “In general, in any situation, guarantee the progressive development of the economy and social sphere, the safety of citizens and the protection of national interests,” Putin emphasized.

We must be prepared for the fact that Western sanctions will intensify, the president noted. Over the years, “our so-called partners” have adopted “countless packages of sanctions,” he said. “They themselves were practically entangled in these sanctions, they tried to punish us, but in the end, as we see, this is a completely obvious thing, it can be seen from the statistics – they hit their own economy, their jobs,” the head of state said.

Putin said that Russia is not afraid of possible new EU sanctions, thus, as he joked, the chance of “bugs” being imported into the country from major European cities is reduced. “Well, the less junk, the better, perhaps: there is less chance that bed bugs will be exported to us from large European cities,” the president said.

The President assessed the dynamics of the country’s GDP in the first nine months of 2023. According to him, the Russian economy grew by 2.8% compared to the same period last year. Including, he added, in August and September, GDP increased by 5.2%. Manufacturing industries and sectors of the real sector not related to the extraction of natural resources are growing at a faster rate. “I would especially like to highlight sectors with good added value – the production of machinery, equipment, equipment,” he added.

Touching on the topic of industry, the President noted a 3.3% increase in production since the beginning of the year. The manufacturing industry grew by 7.1%, including the production of computers and electronic products by 34.5%. “[Рост производства] electrical equipment – ​​by 22.2%, furniture – by 21.7%. That is, all this shows our good momentum,” Putin noted.