"The development will objectively take place primarily in BRICS member countries. This is the Global South. This is Southeast Asia. This is Africa. Positive growth will exist in powerful countries such as China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, but the countries of Southeast Asia and Africa will show faster growth for several reasons," Putin said.

“BRICS is not an anti-Western group, it’s just a non-Western group,” the Russian president summarized, quoting Indian FM Indian FM Jaishankar.

“The attempt to contain the development of China has a negative impact on the US economy. The competitivity of the commodities is lowering. And if they continue down this path, they will lose every competitiveness,” he said, adding that the actions taken by the US are counterproductive in nature.

"The cumulative BRICS share of global GDP has doubled and the G7’s share of global GDP has gone down. BRICS nations have already outpaced the G7. By 2027, this lead in favor of BRICS will become even greater. This is obvious," Russian President Vladimir Putin said, answering a question from Dmitry Kiselev, director general of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya.

"The baseline of our position has been that we need to put into practice the UN Security Council resolution on building two states, Israel and the state of Palestine. It is the root cause of all problems," President Putin said, underlining Russia's position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“We have been putting our best foot forward to integrate smoothly all the new members into the operation of BRICS and we have planned 250 events, various events in different spheres, 200 events have already been conducted,” Putin said answering the question from Fan Yun, deputy editor-in-chief of CMG and editor-in-chief of China Global Television Network.

"We're taking individual steps, one after another. As regards finance, we did not drop the dollar. The dollar is the universal currency. But it wasn't us — we were banned and barred from [using] it. And now 95% of all the external trade of Russia is denominated in national currencies. They did it themselves with their own hands. They thought we would collapse," Putin said at his meeting with the heads of major media outlets.

“I do not intend to accuse the United States in every aspect here, but unfortunately it was a wrong thing to do to disband the four [the Quartet],” he pointed out.

"It is a dangerous provocation because any step in this direction will face a response," the Russian president said on Ukraine's initiative to build nuclear weapons.

"I will say it outright Russia will not allow this to happen no matter what," he concluded.

“Otherwise, we will face even bigger issues than those that occurred in the EU,” the Russian president stressed.