LONDON - Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that his country is now Europe's largest economy despite efforts by Western governments to "strangle" it over the war in Ukraine.
"It seems that we are being strangled and pressured from all sides, but in terms of the volume of the economy as a whole, we have become No. 1 in Europe," Mr Putin told a Jan 11 gathering of business people in Khabarovsk, a city in Russia's far eastern Siberia.
He said that Russia is the fifth-biggest economy in the world behind the United States, China, India and Japan. "This is an amazing result," Mr Putin added, to applause from his audience.
The Russian leader's claim was based on statistics carefully chosen to flatter: the so-called purchasing parity measurements, which compare economic growth and standards of living in different countries with a common currency - usually the US dollar or a basket of goods.
On this yardstick, Russia did indeed rank first in Europe in 2023.
But in terms of gross domestic product US$1.48 trillion (S$1.97 trillion) Russia's economy is still only the world's 11th largest, about the same size as the economy of Brazil, slightly smaller than the economy of South Korea and only half or less than the economies of Germany, Britain or France.
Still, there is no question that Mr Putin is entitled to feel satisfied. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has withstood the biggest onslaught of economic imposed on a nation.
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