"The United States will undermine confidence in the dollar by itself": Putin on sanctions, energy and the main tasks of the Russian authorities

- Mr. President, thank you for hosting us at Russian Energy Week.

- I want to return this puck to you in return.

- Mr. President, I would like to ask: every executive director always thinks about who will be his successor.

What do you think of your successor, do you really want to be president until you're 84?

- No, I prefer not to answer such questions, this is my traditional answer.

There is still a lot of time before the next elections.

Conversations on this topic are destabilizing the situation.

The situation must be calm and stable so that all government bodies, all state structures work confidently and calmly look into the future.

Yes, the Constitution allows me to do this, to run for the next term, but no decisions have been made on this score yet.

- A separate question about the Middle East.

You spoke several times about your relations with Saudi Arabia, about OPEC Plus.

How do you assess the situation in the region today?

Does it cause you concern amid the US withdrawal?

- I think that the Middle East is a very promising region of the world.

And what I now see both in the United Arab Emirates and in Saudi Arabia - the leaders of these countries are taking vigorous steps in order to diversify their economies.

The leadership of these countries thinks about the future, and I am sure that they will achieve results because they act very purposefully.

As for our efforts to stabilize the global energy market, yes, we have all this happening in a rather tough regime: we argue with each other, defend our positions, but we find and have until now found balanced solutions acceptable to all parties. And our partners, although they seem to be leaders in hydrocarbons, in the production and sale of oil, they are still making plans for green energy, which, at first glance, looks very strange, but it really happens in life. We are talking with them about the opportunity to invest funds, large resources in new technologies and new sources of energy. I think this is a very promising area of ​​our cooperation in the future.

- A few months ago, Mr. Novak suggested that we will soon see contracts for the supply of oil not in dollars, but in other currencies, perhaps even in cryptocurrency.

When do you think this can happen?

- Contracts in cryptocurrency?

It's too early to talk about this, because cryptocurrency, of course, can be a unit of account, but it is very unstable.

In order to transfer funds from one place to another - yes, but to trade, let alone trade in energy resources, in my opinion, is still premature.

The cryptocurrency is not backed by anything yet.

It exists and as a means of calculation can be used, of course, yes, but trading in oil, say, or other primary materials and energy sources - still, it seems to me, it's too early to talk about this yet.

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But everything develops, everything has the right to exist.

We will see how it will go further, maybe someday it may also be a means of accumulation.

We see this market fluctuate.

It's a bit early today.

- That is, you think that this does not mean anything, and people like Elon Musk, what they have, is all worthless?

- Why not?

It costs.

Can it just be used as a unit of account when buying and selling oil?

This is what I'm talking about.

And then, in order to emit, you need, you know about this, a huge amount of energy.

To do this, you need to use, while using, traditional types, and above all hydrocarbons.

- This summer, the head of the Central Bank told me that you are moving away from the dollar in terms of settlements, trying to diversify the situation.

Is this done to make the sanctions less painful?

- It seems to me that the United States is making a very big mistake by using the dollar as a sanctions instrument.

And they do this because they prevent payments in dollars for the sanctioned products.

It is simply impossible for us to receive money from customers for the delivered products in dollars.

What does this lead to?

We are simply forced, we have no other choice, we are simply forced to switch to settlements in other currencies.

This is the first thing.

And second, when other countries that use the dollar as a reserve currency or as a settlement instrument see what is happening, they themselves have anxiety that the dollar can be used in their relation to the same way. And they, too, are beginning to reduce their dollar holdings and use less as a unit of account. The result is that even the closest partners and allies of the United States in their reserves are reducing the share of the dollar, this is a statistical fact.

We, of course, do this: we are reducing dollars in our reserves and in payments.

This is not always possible, but we are trying to switch to settlements in national currencies.

In this regard, we can say that the United States is sawing the branch on which they sit, because this is the absolute competitive advantage of the dollar as a universal reserve world currency, they undermine it in this way, in the interests of the momentary political situation, damage their strategic economic interests. 

- Do you think that the dollar is moving towards ceasing to be the world's reserve currency?

Do you think this is possible?

- It is undermining its position as the world's reserve currency.

And the volume of settlements in dollars is shrinking, and the volume of personal reserves of the countries of the world in dollars is also shrinking.

But we are not interested in completely avoiding payments in dollars, and so far we are satisfied with, say, payments for energy resources in dollars, primarily for oil.

But if the policy of the American authorities continues as I have already mentioned, then we will not have to do anything, the United States will itself undermine confidence in the dollar.

Also on russian.rt.com Change of priorities: the share of the dollar in world reserves fell to a minimum in 26 years

Among other things, the US national debt is growing; once again, Congress has now made a decision to increase the government debt ceiling. So what is it? Emission. What is emission? This is the rise in inflation. And for the first time, probably in history, inflation in the United States is growing at a rate that has not happened for a long time. These are already economic reasons, which in one way or another still undermine confidence in the currency. Because everyone is still asking the question: what next? What will the US economic authorities do with this colossal debt? What will they do, carry out some manipulations with the dollar, lower its value? What to do with debt?

These are, of course, fundamental questions.

This does not concern us, it has to do with the Fed's policy, it has to do with the economic policy of the [American] administration.

The United States is the largest economy in the world, very high tech.

The entire world economy depends on the well-being of the American economy, and we are objectively interested in the fact that there are no unrest or leaps here, but this does not depend on us.

We carefully monitor what is happening, analyze and take the necessary steps to ensure our long-term interests.

- Chinese President Xi Jinping calls you his best friend.

Are you concerned about what you see regarding AUKUS - an alliance of Australia, the US and the UK?

Is this creating potential tensions and is it fraught with a new Cold War?

- I also consider President Xi Jinping to be my friend, we have been working together for many years and are achieving good results both in the field of political interaction and in the economic sphere.

I believe that this benefits both the people of China and the people of Russia and balances, creates a certain stability in international affairs.

The creation of some blocs, including the one you mentioned, the United States - Great Britain - Australia, undoubtedly undermines regional stability, because, in my opinion, it is good to be friends with each other, but “to be friends against someone " - this is bad.

This undermines the stability that we all talk about and we all care about.

I hope that what has been done is done, but the situation will not develop according to some unpredictable scenario and will not cause any additional tensions in the region.

- We have already spoken about many problems that exist: inflation, stagnation, AUKUS, the South China Sea, Afghanistan.

Problems are pouring in from a cornucopia.

In your opinion, what is the most serious problem today?

- For us, the most important problem and the most important task that we must solve is raising the incomes of the citizens of the country.

This is our main, main task, and we are not going to solve it with simple linear methods.

To do this, we must ensure the growth of economic development rates and changes in its quality.

This is a long-term task.

We are not going to act with populist methods, but it is on the basis of qualitative economic growth that we are going to solve the main social problems, including increasing the incomes of Russian citizens and solving the second very important problem for us - the demographic one.

And here is a whole range of social issues: health care, education, support for families with children.

In order to solve all these tasks, we have outlined certain national development goals for ourselves.

This is a big problem.

Therefore, the two main problems - demographic and increasing the incomes of citizens, improving their quality of life - must be tackled on this serious economic basis, which I just mentioned.

This is what we intend to do in the near future.

- As for Mr. Navalny, are you ready to raise his standard of living?

- The citizen you mentioned is in prison.

- Not the best living conditions.

- Not the best conditions, but he is not the only one.

In addition to him, there are other people who also violated Russian laws, and we are not going to put anyone in any exclusive conditions, including those who hide behind political activities.

Here you go, I think this is enough to answer your question.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.