“Vowing that the West would never hold Russia down, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday promised that his nation’s troubled economy would recover in two years despite a looming recession, a severely weakened ruble and growing fears about economic instability.
In an annual year-end news conference, Putin defiantly blamed Russia’s turmoil on the West, saying that it was targeting his nation as part of a long-standing geopolitical effort to limit Moscow’s influence. He appeared to be entrenching for years of conflict with the West, even as he sounded slightly more conciliatory about fostering peace in eastern Ukraine.”
