A defiant Vladimir Putin said Russia should brace itself for two years of recession, as he blamed the country’s economic woes on a western plot to defang the Russian bear.
The president was speaking at a three-hour press conference that saw him address this week’s market turmoil in public for the first time.
He claimed that a period of economic hardship was the price Russia would have to pay to maintain its independence in the face of western aggression, repeatedly blaming the rouble’s plunge and a looming recession on “external factors”.
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