Putin ravages the West and says sanctions on Russia are backfiring over Ukraine

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — In a hawkish speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the West for not recognizing the rise of new power blocs since the end of the Cold War and warned that its sanctions on Moscow have backfired and a growing economic crisis would have caused Europe.

“The idea was clear: to crush the Russian economy by force,” Putin said at the annual International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, which Russia hosts as an alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos to mobilize investment in its economy. “They didn’t succeed. Obviously that didn’t happen.”