Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced “discriminatory” Western sanctions abetted by an unfair financial system as his country’s economy teeters on the brink of recession, wounded by trade restrictions and the cost of his war in Ukraine.
Putin made the comments in an interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency published on Saturday, on the eve of his trip to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and attend a massive parade commemorating the end of World War II after Japan’s formal surrender.
“It is essential to end the use of finance as an instrument of neo-colonialism, which runs counter to the interests of the Global Majority,” Putin said, according to the full transcript of his interview published by Xinhua.
“Alongside our Chinese partners, we support the reform of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We are united in the view that a new financial system must be based on openness and true equity,” Putin said in his interview, which overflowed with praise for China.
A new financial system would provide “equal and non-discriminatory access to its tools for all countries and reflecting the real standing of member states in the global economy”, Putin said.
“I am confident that Russia and China will continue to work together towards this noble goal, aligning our efforts to ensure the prosperity of our great nations,” he added.
Putin will be in China, Russia’s biggest trading partner, from Sunday to Wednesday in a four-day visit that the Kremlin has called “unprecedented”.
The Russian leader will first attend the two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin. The security-focused SCO, founded by a group of Eurasian nations in 2001, has expanded to 10 permanent members that now include Iran and India.
Putin will then travel to Beijing to hold talks with President Xi and attend the military parade in the Chinese capital.
When Western nations severed ties with Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was China that came to the rescue, buying Russian oil and selling goods from cars to electronics that pushed bilateral trade to a record $245bn in 2024.
China is now by far Russia’s leading trading partner by volume, and transactions between the countries are almost entirely carried out in Russian roubles and Chinese yuan, Putin said in his interview.
Russia was also a leading exporter of oil and gas to China, and the two sides are continuing joint efforts to reduce bilateral trade barriers, he said.
Putin and Xi declared a “no-limits” strategic partnership in 2022, and the two have met more than 40 times in the past decade.
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