West's 'insane sanctions' against Russia end in failure - Putin

MOSCOW. June 17 (Interfax) - The "insane sanctions" imposed on Russia by a number of Western countries have ended in failure, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday.

"This is also the nature of the current bout of Russophobia in the West and the insane sanctions against Russia. Insane, and I would also say thoughtless. Their number and the pace of forging are truly unprecedented," Putin said.

"The idea was clear: crush the Russian economy violently, in a swoop, and deal a blow to industries, finance and living standards of people by destroying business chains, forcibility pulling Western companies out of the Russian market and freezing domestic assets," he said.

"They did not succeed. Obviously, that did not happen," Putin said.

Russian entrepreneurs and authorities acted in an organized and professional manner, and citizens demonstrated unity and responsibility, Putin said.

"We are normalizing the economic situation step by step: first, we stabilized financial markets, the banking system and trade chains, and then we started saturating the economy with liquidity and working capital to maintain the stability of enterprises and companies," he said.