“Well, clearly the US sanctions as well as the manipulation of the currency against the Russian ruble are economic warfare assets that have been used by the West for centuries,” Scott Rickard, former American intelligence linguist, told on Thursday.

Rickard said “these types of economic warfare and really criminal economic warfare… are very similar to World War I and World War II”, adding “it is another illegal and war-inducing move by the West.”

He went on to say the US and its allies have been using these methods to manipulate the countries that “resist their unrealistic demands and really aggressive foreign policies”.

They have been “manipulating” the currencies and resources as well as “the economic environments in countries that were not cooperating or actually in resistance to American and other European and Western initiatives,” he explained. 

Rickard said Russia is “very self-sufficient and will survive it just like Cuba, just like Iran”.

“Our economy will overcome the current situation. How much time will be needed for that? Under the most unfavorable circumstances, I think it will take about two years,” Putin said.

Ties between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine. The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces. Russia, however, denies the accusation.