White House building in Washington DC, USAWASHINGTON, Mar 21 The US predicts that the Russian economy under the influence of Western sanctions due to the conflict in Ukraine will halve, said Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Duleep Singh. «The best forecast that I see now is that the Russian economy will shrink by half compared to as it was before the invasion. And we are not proud of the suffering of the Russian people. This is [President Vladimir] Putin's war,» Singh said in a CBS interview published on Sunday. According to him, «these are Putin's sanctions and difficulties.» Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» To this end, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine» bloody crimes against civilians» of Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the President of Russia emphasized prices caused by sanctions against Russia
