Putin calls elite to invest in Rusisa rather than beg for Western money

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses Russia’s business elite on Tuesday to invest at home, instead of begging the West for money, telling them that ordinary Russians will have no sympathy for their lost yachts and palaces.

“Trying to run around with your hand outstretched, groveling, begging for money, is pointless,” Putin said in a televised address to Russia’s political, military and business elite.

Russian business elites have fallen under the scope of Western sanctions in response to Russia’s tens of thousands of troops sent to Ukraine a year ago, with property and yachts being among the assets frozen or seized, according to Reuters.

“Recent events have convincingly shown that the image of the West as a safe haven, a refuge for capital, is a phantom, a fake,” Putin said.

Ordinary citizens have not felt sympathy for those who lost their money in foreign banks, or were forced to give up their assets abroad, added Putin, remembering Russia’s 1990s privatization drive that saw state business sold for next to nothing.

Putin welcomed what he said was a long-overdue structural transformation of the Russian economy as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and said it was dangerous for Russian firms to be dependent on the West.

Rosstat has estimated on Tuesday the country’s 2022 GDP decline at 2.1 percent, while the central bank estimated it at 2.5 percent, the numbers meet Russia’s early fears of a double-digit drop as Western sanctions have been imposed.

Putin extolled Russia’s limited economic contraction last year as evidence of the country’s resilience, mentioning that it was reacting to the challenges and putting the economy in a position to unlock its great potential.

The focus on domestic investments has been an ingoing shift, Russia is also eyeing up new markets, as Putin described the Asia-Pacific region as one of the new promising global markets.

In light of Russia’s “no limits” partnership with China last year, China’s top diplomat was due to arrive to Moscow on Tuesday.