Putin at Tech Forum: Isolation Unworkable as Russia Walks Own Path

Russia will not give up and will go forward in its own way, not isolating itself from the world, Vladimir Putin has stated during the Moscow-held technological forum.

"In those areas that are critical for the development of the country, and where we must, and this is essential, we must have their own competencies. At the same time, we must have not only scientific developments and basic solutions, but the entire technological and production chain," Putin stated, adding that Russia has learned its lessons when some foreign partners halted cooperation in technology.

According to the president, the ruling elites of some countries have staged a technological blockade of Russia.

"I considered it important to talk about how we build our work at the state level, how we build international scientific and technological cooperation in the conditions of the actual blockade of Russia announced by the authorities and the ruling elites, most likely the elites of some countries," the president said at the forum.

The West sought to weaken Russia's security by maintaining its dependence on foreign technologies, he outlined.

"Let's be blunt: this is exactly what some countries were striving for when they tried by any means to literally get our country hooked on foreign technology platforms and standards. And we must admit - not without success," Putin said.

The Russian president also said that dependency on foreign technology "poses a serious threat to the national security," and could lead to the weakening of sovereignty or its loss.

Cooperation 'Without Succumbing to External Pressure': Takeaways From Putin's Address at SPIEF 2023

16 June 2023, 18:12

Putin said he considers it fundamentally important to transfer the country's economy to a new management model based on big data.

"Our fundamental task is to transfer the entire economy, the social sphere, the work of the authorities to qualitatively new principles of work, to introduce management based on big data," the head of state said at the forum.

He has also proposed to prepare a new national project on the formation of Russia's data economy until 2030.

"I propose to prepare a new national project for the period up to 2030 within a year, namely the national project for the formation of a data economy," Putin said at a technological forum.

In addition, he stated that Russia intends to create mutually-beneficial technological alliances with other countries.

"Of course, solving the tasks of technological sovereignty, we are not going to lock ourselves in, on the contrary, we intend to create and expand equal, mutually-beneficial technological and scientific alliances with other states," Putin said.

The president specified that Russia will discuss projects on the use of advanced technologies in the BRICS format.

"In particular, we are talking about advanced technologies for computing, processing, storage and data transmission," he said, outlining that "such specific projects [...] will be discussed" during the Russian presidency of the BRICS in 2024."

Earlier, Putin outlined that the West's plan of weakening and restricting Russia is a long-term one, adding that sanctions have caused a significant blow to the whole world economy. He claimed that the Western world's major objective is to make millions of people's lives worse.