Vladimir Putin has made unfounded boasts about the Russian economy amid the heavy sanctions placed on the country since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was met with international sanctions which the Russian leader claimed had been designed to strangle and crush Russia.
However, during a recent visit to Khabarovsk, a city in the Russian Far East, Putin declared that the economic sanctions had failed.
Putin insisted that Russia is the fifth largest economy in the world behind China, the US, India and Japan.
Putin told a gathering of Russian business executives: “This is an amazing result. We appear to be strangled and pressured from all sides but in terms of the volume of the economy as a whole, we have become number one in Europe.
“We have overtaken Germany.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is pushing Kyiv’s Western allies to provide Ukraine with more support on top of the billions of dollars in military aid the country has already received.
This week he visited three small Baltic countries — Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia — in search of new pledges.
The eastern European countries, which are also amongst Kyiv’s staunchest supporters, promised more missiles, drones, howitzers and artillery shells.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Sunak is expected to announce that military funding for Ukraine for the next financial year will be £2.5 billion.
Ths funding would cover long-range missiles, air defense, artillery ammunition and maritime security.
Sunak said: “I am here today with one message: the UK will also not falter, We will stand with Ukraine, in their darkest hours and in the better times to come.”
