Putin Says Current German Policies Cause 'Enormous' Damage to German Economy

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The current policies of the German authorities are causing enormous damage to the future of the German economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

"It is abundantly clear that today's policies of the current [German] authorities are doing enormous damage to the future of the German economy," Putin said.

At the same time, the Russian president believes the German economy is capable of surviving without Russian energy.

"It [the German economy] is capable of existing and developing long, so there will be no catastrophe here," he said.

Russia is effectively coping with Europe's rejection of Russian gas by using other foreign routes and is working on its own domestic gas supply, RPutin said.

"Thankfully, we are coping. We have turned to other routes, we are beginning to work more on our own gasification, on the use of these energy sources to solve internal economic problems. Not only for housing and utilities, but also for the economy, for industry," Putin said.

At the same time, Russia does not deny energy sales to anyone, Putin said, proceeding to praise Turkey as the "most reliable partner," who continues to pump gas via the Turk Stream pipeline.

Despite the attack on the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, one leg remains functional, Putin noted.

"You [Europeans] only need to open the valve and say,' We want to receive,' and they will start receiving [gas] tomorrow, it's a matter of one week. But they do not want to," he said.

European countries expected that if they did not buy Russian gas, Russia would collapse, but irreversible processes are beginning to occur in the European Union and European industry is moving to other countries, Putin said. It is true that when European countries were buying Russian gas, Russia got more money, but the less Russia depends on energy, the better, because other sectors of the economy are developing more actively, Putin said.