President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia needed to work on increasing its economic sovereignty and that the West would always find a pretext to impose sanctions on Moscow.
The West has threatened Russia with major sanctions if it invades Ukraine after the Kremlin massed forces near its former Soviet neighbour. Moscow denies planning to invade. Putin made the remark at a news conference in Moscow.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Andrew Osborn; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Mark Heinrich)
