“Her economy Russia he is suffering a lot,” the French president said today. Emmanuel Macronstating that he “does not believe” the “propaganda” of official statistics published by Moscow.

Asked on the sidelines of a visit to the Rungis market near Paris about official figures that Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by 2.2% in 2022, the French president replied: “They say it’s 2%, I say it’s it’s a lot more.”

“They make money off the gas they sell to others, but the rest of the economy suffers a lot. So I don’t believe this evidence at all,” Macron said.

Russian statistics “are propaganda, we are talking about a country that is no longer a democratic, free country with an independent (statistical) institution,” he said.

Russia’s GDP shrank by 2.2% in 2022, according to Rosstat data released yesterday, as the economy appears to have weathered the impact of tough Western sanctions better than expected following Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

Macron also pointed out that “hundreds of thousands of young people (…) left to avoid the draft” and that the Russians “missed out a lot of opportunities” economically.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}