The Kremlin explained why Putin did not talk about sanctions with Scholz and Macron

President Vladimir Putin never discusses the topic of sanctions with the leaders of the countries that have imposed them. This is how Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov responded to a request to comment on Bild's publication on this topic.

“Let, perhaps, the French and Germans themselves discuss. I can confirm that Putin never raised the topic of sanctions in his contacts with the leaders of those countries that imposed them," Peskov said.

He added that the data on economic growth confirm the correctness of the president's position. “Therefore, indeed, Putin never spoke about sanctions with them,” Peskov said. 

Bild previously published a conversation between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron. In it, Scholz expressed regret about the attitude of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the sanctions imposed against Moscow.

The German chancellor drew attention to the fact that Putin did not talk about sanctions at all during the conversation. “Something depresses me more than the negotiations: he [Putin] does not complain about the sanctions at all . I don't know if that was the case with you. But he didn’t mention sanctions at all,” Scholz said. Macron confirmed that in a conversation with him, the Russian president also did not talk about this.

Western countries began to introduce new packages of sanctions against RUSSIA after the start of a military special operation in Ukraine . Putin called them crazy and thoughtless. According to him, "the very construction of Western sanctions" was built on the false thesis that Russia is not sovereign from the point of view of the economy and is critically vulnerable. “They were so carried away by the spread of the myth about the backwardness of Russia and the weakness of Russia’s position in the world economy and trade that they themselves believed it,” the president said.

W marcu 2023, Putin noted that the Russian economy has shown positive dynamics since July 2022, as domestic companies fill the niches of departed Western firms and develop ties with the growing economies of the east and south. But “the return to the growth trajectory should not relax us,” he stressed at the time.