SOCHI, October 5. /TASS/. Russia is well aware what it lacks on the battlefield and it has already stepped up the production of certain items several-fold, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session of the Valdai discussion club.

"We will continue to strengthen our defense capabilities. We also see the issues that arise, to put it bluntly, in the course of military operations. We see what we still lack. But we are increasing production. In some areas, we are increasing production many times over," he emphasized.

Putin pointed out that Russia's adversaries, who had escalated the situation to the current "hot confrontation" stage and imposed sanctions against Moscow, have achieved the reverse effect.

"We have very obvious changes in the structure of the Russian economy. In the GDP structure, we have gained 3% in the oil and gas industry and 43% in the manufacturing industries, including, of course, defense, but also electronics, optics and machine building. They left our market, apparently thinking that everything would collapse. It’s the other way round. Everything is only getting stronger," Putin noted.

"Yes, inflation has been up a little. The ruble is fluctuating, that’s true. We see these problems. But the structure of the economy is changing. It is becoming more high-tech on its own basis. We need to maintain this trend by all means. And we will definitely do that," he concluded.