The United States “with its own hands” pushed the countries, which are not participating in “sanctions wars,” to form a “new Big Eight” group with Russia, the Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Saturday.
Following the launch of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine in late February, the US, EU, UK and many other countries imposed hard-hitting restrictions on Moscow, making Russia the most sanctioned country in the world.
In a Telegram post, Volodin included a table with IMF data on GDP based on purchasing power parity of countries he calls the “new G8” and of countries forming the current G7 (after Russia’s participation in the bloc was suspended over Crimea’s vote to join the country in 2014, the G8 effectively turned into the G7).
“The group of eight countries not participating in the sanctions wars – China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Turkey – in terms of GDP at PPP is 24.4% ahead of the old group,” Volodin wrote.
In his opinion, the economies of the G7 members – the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – continue “to crack under the weight of sanctions imposed against Russia.”