The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union should continue to increase the pace of integration construction, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council.

“Life itself dictates the need to create a truly barrier-free, single market in the EAEU space.

We are all convinced that closer integration will allow our countries to become economically stronger and significantly reduce their dependence on external, including political, conditions,” the Russian leader noted.

“The advantages of the integration course are especially obvious now, in the current difficult international situation, in the face of practically aggression from some states that are unfriendly to us,” Putin said.

According to the Russian leader, Moscow's key priority is to deepen allied ties with all the states of the union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), as well as Uzbekistan as an observer country.

“For our part, I want to emphasize, we will do everything to support the integration processes in the Eurasian space,” he added.

  • Putin at a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council

The President of the Russian Federation also noted with satisfaction that many foreign partners are showing a growing interest in the activities of the association: “Even despite the difficult international situation, the confrontation unleashed by the so-called collective West, the fact that our ill-wishers are trying to put all sorts of obstacles to our integration.”

The head of state drew attention to the fact that over the eight years since the signing of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, the association has become an effective and influential regional economic organization.

“There are significant achievements in key areas of cooperation - in trade, industry, finance and agriculture.

And most importantly, the benefits of the integration work, which we are consistently engaged in, in practice, in their daily lives, are felt by the citizens of our countries, ”Putin recalled.

“It was not possible to organize an economic blitzkrieg against Russia”

The Russian leader has repeatedly drawn attention to the failure of attempts by Western countries to harm the Russian economy.

So, at a meeting on measures of socio-economic support for the subjects of the Russian Federation on March 16, the president said that the Western countries had chosen economic, financial, trade and other sanctions against Russia as weapons, which, however, hit them themselves: Europe and the United States faced with rising prices for gasoline, energy, food, as well as with the loss of jobs associated with the Russian market.

Putin noted that Western sanctions have seriously hit the entire global economy.

At the same time, he stressed that the Russian economy is adapting to new realities.

“Obviously, it was not possible to organize an economic blitzkrieg against Russia, to demoralize our society, to take us in an impudent manner,” he said.

On April 13, during a meeting on the development of the Arctic, the president said that the refusal of a number of Western countries from normal cooperation with Russia hit millions of Europeans, provoking a "real energy crisis."

According to Putin, "inflation is going through the roof" in European countries.

“For these countries, it is absolutely unprecedented,” the head of state explained.

Also at a meeting on economic issues on April 18, Putin again stressed that the West had failed to bring down the Russian financial system with the help of sanctions. 

“The calculation was to quickly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, provoke a panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system, a large-scale shortage of goods in stores,” he said. 

Such a policy towards Russia has failed, Putin stated, noting in particular that the Russian retail market has stabilized after a brief hype.

According to the president, the United States and the West have historically pursued and are pursuing a policy of containing Russia and, after several failures, have taken up massive preparations for an economic war against Russia, “step by step, using all sorts of pretexts (and sometimes simply without any pretexts), they have introduced ever new sanctions restrictions".

"Today's plans for economic strangulation have also failed," Putin said.