WASHINGTON, February 13. /TASS/. Washington can no longer claim without any basis that Russia’s economy will collapse as it demonstrates stable growth despite sanctions, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said.
"The Americans can no longer pour out claims without any basis and terrifying predictions of Russia’s inevitable economic collapse. Objective statistics and analytic calculations, including those published by the Bretton Woods Institutions, prove otherwise," he said when commenting on statements by US experts about unexpectedly high growth dynamics of the Russian economy and poor effectiveness of the sanctions strategy of the US and other countries.
"The Russian economy copes with a surge of instability successfully. Moreover, it has started growing stably, outpacing even the expectations of international structures. This all - despite the continuing employment of unprecedented restrictive measures against Russia, constant leveling of tools such as the price cap on trade in Russian oil," Antonov was quoted as saying by the Russian embassy’s Telegram channel.
"That said, it should be noted that Russia not only adjusts its economic policy in accordance with the needs of the special military operation, ensures solid social support of the population, but it also takes efforts on high-quality restructuring of the national economy. The task is to encourage the gradual sustainable development in the long run," he stressed.
First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath said earlier this week that the Russian economy is firmly "on positive growth territory" at the current stage. "You know, we are in squarely positive growth territory; it has done better than we expected," she told The Foreign Policy weekly when commenting on the status of the Russian economy.