Russia’s president, calling the 2020s a period of “strengthening economic sovereignty” for his country, has said that this decade will see the formation of an independent and efficient financial system in Russia. In an advance greeting to the participants of the upcoming St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin also blamed “a wave of global inflation” and “a sharp increase in poverty and food shortages” on “long-term mistakes” made by Western countries as well as the imposition of “illegitimate sanctions.”

“I am convinced that for Russia the 2020s will become a period of strengthening economic sovereignty, which provides for the accelerated development of its own infrastructure and technological base, a qualitative increase in the level of training of specialists, as well as the formation of an independent and efficient financial system,” Mr. Putin said in the statement, which was published on the websites of both the forum and the Kremlin. 

No details were provided as to what that independent system might entail, but Mr. Putin did add that “the Russian economy will increasingly rely on private initiative and, of course, will maintain its course towards openness and broad international cooperation.”

International cooperation with Russia has been in diminishing supply since the country invaded neighboring Ukraine on February 24. That may be one reason why in the greeting Mr. Putin also stated: “It is important to introduce and develop truly mutually beneficial integration models, as is already being done in the space of the Eurasian Economic Union.” That economic bloc includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia in addition to Russia. 

Mr. Putin’s almost comically contrarian attempt to flip the script on Russia’s mounting economic isolation will likely be seen as a whisper against the growing chorus of Western leaders who fault Moscow for causing inflation and increasing the risk of global famine. Mr. Putin also attempted to exonerate himself from the latter charge. 

The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Mr. Putin said “20 million tons of Ukrainian wheat — 0.5 percent of the world’s grain production, is ‘nothing,’” while noting that, in his view, the problem of exporting grain by sea stems from the Ukrainian military mining the ports. He apparently neglected to say that the reason Ukraine placed mines in the Black Sea near Odessa and other blockaded ports was to stop Russia from launching attacks on Ukraine’s coastline from the sea.

Whether Mr. Putin plans to travel to St. Petersburg to attend the forum, which is scheduled to take place June 15-18, was not immediately clear. There has been rampant speculation about the aging Kremlin strongman’s state of health, though the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently told a French television station that “no sane person” would say Mr. Putin is ill. Mr. Lavrov also said the leader “appears in public every day,” but the veracity of that statement is in question.