Western sanctions inevitable, to make Russia more self-reliant - Putin

MOSCOW. March 10 (Interfax) - The sanctions against Russia were inevitable, and the country will cope with them and rise to the challenge, President Vladimir Putin said.

"I have no doubt that these sanctions would have been imposed one way or another anyway, just as they have been over many past years," Putin said towards the end of his meeting with the government on Thursday.

"Even after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many sanctions and restrictions, the so-called CoCom lists (a list of strategic goods banned from export to the socialist countries), never ceased to be effective," he said.

"They were against the Soviet Union, and so they were against the Russian Federation, only everyone gladly took the money in repayment of the previous loans taken out by all republics of the Soviet Union during the Soviet period," Putin said.

"Sanctions pressure has always been there, only now it got complicated, creating certain issues, problems, difficulties for us," he said.

"But we, just as we did in previous years, will overcome these difficulties now too. We need to go through the period. The economy, no doubt, will adapt to the new situation. We will continue import-substitution in all areas and in the end all this will lead to our greater independence, self-reliance and sovereignty," Putin said.

"We are well aware that many countries have already adapted to living with their backs hunched and fawningly submitting to all decisions of their sovereign," he said.

"Russia cannot exist in such a state, in this miserable and humiliated state; sooner or later all this was bound to happen. It has now. And I am confident that, not least thanks to our government members and our leading companies, we will overcome all these difficulties," Putin said.