Sanctions reveal weakness in Western understanding of Russian economy — Medvedev

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. Sanctions have hit the West itself because it relied on a distorted perception of the Russian economy when introducing restrictions against the country, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with RT.
“They, the leaders of Western countries, including the United States and European nations, had absolutely distorted perceptions of the Russian economy,” Medvedev stated. “I remember the phrase of [US President in 2009-2017] Barack Obama, with whom I interacted quite a lot, after the introduction of the first sanctions, as early as in 2014, that the Russian economy was ‘in tatters.’ This was just an ideologeme, a false narrative,” Medvedev noted.
“These sanctions returned to them [to the West],” the Russian official said. “The Russian economy is growing, rather than declining,” Medvedev noted. “These sanctions returned to Europe as a boomerang. And they demonstrated weakness of Europe. Weakness of Europe as an economic body,” he concluded.