Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized Western sanctions against his country as a "threat to the whole world". Last year, the corona pandemic was still the most pressing challenge, said Putin at the 7th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on the Pacific.

Now new difficulties have arisen: "I mean the sanctions fever of the West, its aggressive attempts to impose a behavioral model on other countries, to rob them of their sovereignty and to subject them to their own will."

More than six months ago, Putin ordered a war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine. The USA, the EU and other Western countries have therefore imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia.