Putin says West will fail to isolate Russia over Ukraine invasion

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin says the West will fail in its attempts to isolate Russia and face growing economic problems.

Speaking today via video link to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, Putin says Russia wasn’t going to shut itself off from international cooperation. The forum includes several ex-Soviet nations.

Putin says that trying to isolate Russia is “impossible, utterly unrealistic in the modern world” and “those who try to do it primarily hurt themselves.”

The Russian leader cites growing economic challenges in the West, including “inflation unseen in 40 years, growing unemployment, rupture of supply chains and the worsening of global crises in such sensitive spheres as food.”

“This is not a joke,” he says. “This is a serious thing that will have an impact on the entire system of economic and political relations.”

He lambasts the West for seizing Russian reserves, saying that “the theft of others’ assets never brought any good.”