Attempts to squeeze the country out of the global system have failed as it cannot function without such a key player, the president has said

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a plenary session 'The Polycentric World: Instructions for Use' of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia. ©  Sputnik / Grigory Sysoev

Global balance cannot be built without Russia, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that attempts to isolate the country in recent years have failed.

Delivering his annual address at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Putin stated that Russia is inextricably interwoven into a multitude of global economic, cultural, and logistical processes, and cannot be excluded from them at the whim of Western nations.

“I think that those who have tried to destroy [these links], have become convinced of” this reality, the Russian president said.

“It has turned out that the very global system that [some] wanted to expel us from, to squeeze us out of, is simply not letting Russia go, because it needs Russia as a very significant part of the universal balance,” Putin argued.