Addressing a crowd of activists on Friday in Tula, the capital of Russia’s arms industry, Vladimir Putin crowed that the country’s economy had defeated western sanctions imposed after his invasion of Ukraine.
“They predicted decline, failure, collapse — that we would stand back, give up, or fall apart. It makes you want to show [them] a well-known gesture, but I won’t do that, there are a lot of ladies here,” Putin said to a round…