Russia’s economy is coping with sanctions decently, Russian President Vladimir Putin said today at the beginning of a meeting in Sochi with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.

“The Russian economy withstands the sanctions blow, withstands it quite decently,” Putin said. According to him, “all the main macroeconomic indicators speak about it.”

At the same time, he agreed that “everything is not easy, everything that is happening requires special attention, special efforts from the government’s economic bloc.” “In general, these efforts are having a positive effect,” Putin added.

He noted that the transition to national currencies in trade with Russian partners “makes itself felt.” Putin emphasized that this is done “not to the detriment of our partners, we fulfill all our obligations.

According to the Belarusian president, the economy of Russia and the Union State (with Belarus) is strengthening despite Western sanctions.

“It is very important that the economy in Russia and in general in our Union is not just strengthening, but unexpectedly intensively strengthening. Take inflation, take unemployment. It has turned out to be lower. The unemployment rate is falling. This is good,” said Lukashenko, quoted by the state agency BelTA.

“Well, the ruble (Russian ruble) is strengthening at a furious pace. So that we don’t overdo it here,” he continued.

According to him, “that’s why unexpected things are happening.”

“Well, it’s unexpected for them (the West). We-we expected this to happen. This is a time of opportunity. And they, without realizing it themselves, have pushed us to engage more intensively in their economy,” Lukashenko said.

He also noted that the governments of Belarus and Russia have identified the main areas of import substitution and calculated the cost of investment in this area. “The money is quite small. I don’t want to name it publicly now, because they are approximate. Well, absolutely ridiculous money. But we’ll reach the main points, where we lack components and other things for good import substitution,” said Lukashenko.