President Vladimir Putin on Friday suggested that U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia would hurtle back to strike those who instated them.
"Isn't it obvious that economic sanctions as an instrument of political pressure have a boomerang effect in the interconnected modern world, and that at the end of the day they affect the business and economies of those countries that initiated them?," Putin said in a speech before assembled economic heavyweights at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Interfax reported.
Putin obliquely criticized the West for its response to Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, saying that the "unwillingness to consider the lawful interests of one's partners and unilateral pressure only multiply chaos and instability."
