Putin’s press conference after the meeting of the State Council. The main thing

Russian President Vladimir Putin today spent face-to-face meeting of the large State Council, which was devoted to youth policy. Following the event, he gave a press conference, answering journalists’ questions. The head of state touched upon the most important topics for society, from a special military operation to issues of the country’s economic development and the supply of energy resources to world markets. In addition, the President briefly summed up the outgoing 2022.

Russia plans not to spin the flywheel of the Ukrainian conflict, which began back in 2014, but to end it, Putin told reporters.

“In fact, the situation began to take shape – it was less noticeable even in our country, and in the West they preferred not to talk about it at all and not notice it at all – but it all started in 2014 after the coup d’état provoked by the same States, when pies were handed out on the Maidan. I have already spoken about this many times. But our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but on the contrary, to end this war: we are striving for this and will continue to strive,” he said.

The head of state added that Russia would strive to ensure that the conflict was resolved, “and the sooner the better.” He also spoke out against the intensification of hostilities, because this would lead to unjustified losses – “the chicken pecks grain by grain,” he noted. In general, the SVO became a forced but necessary measure in the light of the threats that Russia faced.

The United States can supply Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, but this is a rather old system for which there is an antidote, the president added. In this case, Western countries will have to transfer more modern systems to Ukraine, but here they will also face a number of difficulties. By supplying weapons to Kyiv, the West seeks to prolong the conflict in Ukraine, Putin said.

“Now they say that Patriot can be put there. Well, let them put it – we will click on the Patriot. Then it will be necessary to put something instead of Patriot, it is necessary to develop new systems. This is a complex, lengthy process, everything is not so simple. We take this into account, we also consider everything that appears there, we consider where and how much is still in warehouses, what is left, what they can produce, in what time frame, how they can train personnel,” the head of state said.

The introduction of a cap on gas prices is yet another attempt at administrative price regulation, Putin said. According to him, such decisions will not lead to anything good in both the gas and oil sectors.

The Russian president also expressed surprise at the actions of the EU authorities. He recalled how before the European Commission called on Russia to switch to exchange pricing for gas. At the same time, Putin predicted a surge in prices if this idea was implemented. As a result, this is exactly what happened, Putin noted. According to him, now Europe is looking for ways to “steer” and is trying to regulate gas prices.

“We reserve the right to think about whether we are then obliged to fulfill these contracts if the other side violates them,” the Russian president said. He stressed that the Russian side continues to closely follow this process.

Commenting on the situation with Nord Stream, Putin once again called the incident a terrorist attack. According to him, “everyone recognized it.” The Russian president added that the blowing up of gas pipelines was carried out with the support of other states, a private person is “not in a position to commit such a terrorist attack.”

“As they usually say in such cases: look who is interested. Who is interested in the line of Russian gas supply to the European market passing only through Ukraine, who is interested in Ukraine receiving money? <...> That one blew up,” the head of state concluded.

He recalled that the Russian side was allowed to the site of the explosions only once. At the same time, no one is conducting a full-fledged investigation of this incident. “Surprising but true,” Putin said.

Answering journalists’ questions, Putin again explained that the decision of Western countries to impose a price ceiling on Russian oil would not affect the budget or oil companies, since Russia already sells oil at such prices. In addition, the President promised to sign a decree on retaliatory measures to the price ceiling early next week.

“I think I will sign the decree somewhere on Monday or Tuesday. These are preventive measures, because there is no evidence of any individual damage for Russia, for the Russian economy, for the Russian fuel and energy complex. We sell approximately at the prices set as the ceiling,” Putin said.

At the same time, he stressed that the establishment of administrative barriers to the development of the oil market would lead to underinvestment in the industry, which in the future could cause the destruction of the global energy sector. “There may come a moment when the underinvested industry stops providing the required volume of products to the market, and then prices will skyrocket and hurt those who are trying to introduce these tools,” he added.

Russia, Putin continued, has passed the current year quite confidently, against the background of the current situation, the authorities have no doubts about the implementation of the plan in 2023.

“Perfect situations never happen. Ideal situations are only in plans, on paper, you always want something more. But in general, I think that Russia has passed this year quite confidently. We have no concerns related to the fact that the situation that has developed today will prevent us from implementing our plans for the future, including for 2023,” he said.

In addition, the president drew attention to the fact that the collapse of the Russian economy predicted by the West did not take place this year. According to him, the West hoped that Russia’s GDP would fall by 20-25% by the end of 2020, but in reality the decline would be at the level of about 2.5%. Inflation at the end of the year will be slightly more than 12%, he added. “This, I think, is much better than in many other countries, including the G20 countries. It is not good that there is inflation, but it is good that it is less than in other countries,” Putin said.

The president also mentioned that he plans to deliver a message to the Federal Assembly at the beginning of the next goal, without naming a specific date. “The question is that the dynamics of events is very large, the situation is developing very dynamically, therefore it is very, not very, but it was difficult to fix the results and specific plans for the near future right at a particular moment in time. We will do this at the beginning of the year, of course,” he explained.