"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.

"Europeans have been dragged into Asia through NATO. Nobody is asking the Europeans whether they want to spoil their relationship with China, whether they want to use NATO entities to enter Asia and to create a situation that would cause concern for the region, for China specifically. Still, they are dragged like puppies," he stressed.

“When NATO will get tired of waging this war against us [Russia], just ask them. We were ready to continue fighting, to continue the struggle, and we will have the upper hand [in the Ukraine conflict],” he said.

“I have heard from the people that fight on the ground that today's war is the war of mathematicians. Radio-jamming devices would be effective against certain delivery vehicles and they would suppress them. The other side has, for example, calculated and reckoned what is the counterforce and reprograms the software of its striking assets in a week or three weeks,” Putin shared.

"We are building an icebreaker fleet that has no peers in the world. It's going to be a unique fleet, seven nuclear icebreakers and 34 diesel-propelled, high-class, heavy-duty icebreakers," Putin said, referring to the development of the Northern Sea Route in particular.