Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow, December 18, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin assured Russians on Thursday that the economy would rebound after the rouble's dramatic slide this year but offered no remedy for a deepening financial crisis.
Defiant and confident at a three-hour news conference, Putin blamed the economic problems on external factors and said the crisis over Ukraine was caused by the West, which he accused of building a "virtual" Berlin Wall to contain Russia.
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