EPA/Ramil Sitdikov/Sputnik
Vladimir Putin
“Let them choose any installation: we are ready,” said the Russian president. But he is “concerned” about rising prices.
Russian President Vladimir Putin challenged the United States this Tuesday to a kind of duel in Kiev between the new Russian hypersonic weaponry and Western anti-missile defense systems.
“What choose any installation for us to attacksay, in Kiev. Let them concentrate all their anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems there. And we will attack with [um míssil] Oreshnik”, he stated, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
“We’ll see what happens.. We are ready for this experience”, said Putin during his press conference to sum up the year, seen on television by millions of Russians.
Russia first deployed Oreshnik hypersonic missiles against Ukraine and has claimed that no Western air defense system is capable of countering the new Russian weapon. A new attack with the same missile could happen as soon as “next days”, On the 13th, a US official spoke anonymously to the Associated Press.
“We are sending signals and we hope that the last one, two weeks ago, the signal with the new weapons system called Oreshnik… was taken seriously,” said the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov at the beginning of the month.
“What is unpleasant is the rise in prices”
The Russian President acknowledged that galloping inflation in Russia It’s a “worrying sign”but sought to reassure Russians about the prospects for the economy of the country at war for almost three years.
“Inflation is a worrying sign”, admitted Putin in the first minutes of his large annual press conference, cited by the French agency AFP.
The inflation rate accelerated to 8.9% in November, while authorities officially target a 4% rise in prices.
Inflation is expected to approach 9% by the end of the year, after almost 7.5% in 2023, the year in which Russia invaded Ukraine, and 12% in 2022.
“What is unpleasant and bad is the rise in prices. But I hope that if macroeconomic indicators hold, we will be able to cope with the situation,” Putin said.
“The situation of the Russian economy as a whole is stable, despite external threats and attempts to influence it,” he said, alluding to Western sanctions over the war against Ukraine.
A Russian currency is at its weakest point against the dollar and euro since March 2022, with the dollar currently trading at over 100 rubles.
Putin said he expects GDP to increase by “3.9%, maybe 4%” at the end of the year, but the BCR predicts a sharp slowdown next year, with growth between 0.5% and 1.5% forecast for 2025 .
The executive director of the main Russian bank, Sberbank, German Gref, recently warned of “significant signs of slowdown” in the economy and “the danger of stagflation”, when high inflation and very weak growth occur simultaneously.
“The situation is difficult. A whole series of borrowers will find themselves in a difficult situation, banks will be in a difficult situation,” he said at an investment forum on December 6.
