Putin says sanctions against Russia aimed at ‘worsening lives’ of millions of people

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday spoke about Western sanctions against Moscow as Russian forces press on for a third week in the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. 

“In effect, these steps are aimed at worsening the lives of millions of people,” Putin said of the sanctions, according to The Associated Press. 

“One should clearly understand that the new set of sanctions and restrictions against us would have followed in any case, I want to emphasize this. Our military operation in Ukraine is just a pretext for the next sanctions,” he added, claiming that the West failed to conduct “an economic blitzkrieg” against his country. 

But Western sanctions against Russia, including U.S. bans on financial dealings with the Bank of Russia and the Russian foreign investment fund as well as the ousting of certain Russian banks from the SWIFT international banking system, have delivered a crushing blow to the country’s economy. 

Many private businesses — ranging from oil companies and retailers to media, sports and more — have also made moves against or pulled their operations out of Russia amid the invasion, which began Feb. 24. 

Meanwhile, Moscow’s stock market is still closed and has been that way since the start of the attack in an effort to keep investors from pulling their funds.

As the value of the ruble has collapsed, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, has said the possibility of a Russian default was not “improbable.”

“I can say that no longer we think of Russian default as improbable event,” Georgieva said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Russia has the money to service its debt, but cannot access it.”