EU's policy on gas prices 'madness,' says Putin

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the EU's policy on gas prices "madness" and rejected all claims against Russia on that matter.

At a meeting of the country's Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, Putin accused Western countries of declaring "economic war" on Russia.

"The collective West has fallen upon us with an economic war," Putin said, noting that Western countries were wrong in their calculation that the Russian economy would collapse as a result.

He also said that Russia was facing "unprecedented" aggression in the form of sanctions that aim to swiftly crush the country's economy by provoking a collapse of the Russian currency, the ruble, "through theft of foreign exchange reserves" and by triggering "destructive inflation."

Putin added that Moscow intends to reorient its energy supplies to new fast-growing markets, such as Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

"The EU continues to consume our goods and services, while holding back flows. The situation of such imbalances cannot continue indefinitely. What should we do? We will look for other, more promising partners in actively growing regions of the world economy. These are Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa," Putin said.

He also specified the East as a focus point for the reorientation of Russian gas, which he said would expand to 88 billion cubic meters by 2030.

"An important step to reduce the impact of sanctions and other hostile actions against Russia will be the development of port and pipeline infrastructure in the south and east, including increasing the export of natural gas. Implementation of such projects ... will allow increasing gas supplies to the east to 48 billion cubic meters by 2025, and to 88 billion by 2030," he said.