By PTI
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has no assets abroad, the Kremlin said on Monday, dismissing as “absurd and short-sighted” the personal sanctions slapped on him by the US and its Western allies for ordering a full-fledged military offensive against Ukraine.
“He is quite indifferent,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked how Putin takes personal restrictions, adding that the president annually declares all his property.
President Putin has no assets abroad, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency quoted his spokesman as saying.
“Speaking about [sanctions] from the viewpoint of solving problems, of course, the very fact of imposing sanctions against the head of the state is absurd, short-sighted,” Peskov said.
Russia has about USD 630 billion in reserves – a stockpile of savings – built up from soaring oil and gas prices.
Kremlin spokesperson Peskov said Russia planned to ride out sanctions imposed by Western countries that have sent the rouble tumbling.
“The Western sanctions on Russia are hard, but our country has the necessary potential to compensate [for] the damage,” Peskov said.
He said that Putin will be working on “economic questions” and meeting key ministers including the finance minister and central bank governor.
The key meeting comes after the UK, along with the US and EU, cut off Russia’s banks from financial markets in the West, stopping dealings with the central bank, state-owned investment funds and the finance ministry.
As a result, Russia’s central bank has more than doubled its key interest rate to 20 per cent from 9.5 per cent.
It marks a bid to halt the rapid fall in the value of Russia’s currency the rouble against the US dollar, which threatens to wipe out its buying power and destroy the savings of ordinary Russians.
