G7 flagsBERLIN, Mar 24The leaders of the G7 countries, which imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia, in a joint address following the meeting in Brussels, said that they have no complaints against the Russian people. «The people of Russia should know that we have no complaints against them. This is the President (RF Vladimir) Putin and his government and supporters, including the regime of (Alexander) Lukashenko in Belarus, who imposed this war and its consequences on the Russians, and it is their decision that stains the history of the Russian people,» the statement said.
The rich also pay: what Russian billionaires have lostThey expressed concern about the intensification of «repressions against the Russian people and the increasingly fierce rhetoric of the Russian leadership, including against ordinary citizens.» The G7 leaders condemned «attempts by the Russian leadership to restrict access to unbiased information through censorship» as well as «malicious disinformation campaigns.» and supporters of this aggression, including the Lukashenka regime in Belarus, for their actions.» Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 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. The G7 includes Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, the USA, France and Japan. In the very first days after the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine, these countries imposed a number of economic sanctions, which, according to many experts, will affect ordinary Russians and Belarusians first of all. A number of politicians in the G7 countries do not hide the fact that they are trying to destroy the Russian economy with sanctions. In particular, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the United States and allies «completely crushed» the Russian economy. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken argued that Washington and its allies «cut off» Russia from the global economy. Poland quarrels with Brussels over Ukrainian refugeesPutin noted that the current events draw a line under the global dominance of the West in both politics and the economy, and also «cast doubt on the economic model that in recent decades has been imposed on developing countries, and indeed on everything the world.» According to him, «the sanctions obsession of the United States and its supporters is not shared by the countries where more than half of the world's population lives. He stressed that these states represent the fastest growing, most promising part of the global economy, including Russia. Press Secretary Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian economy is indeed experiencing difficulties due to sanctions, but Moscow sees these restrictions as an opportunity for development.
